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Delusions gf 
Democracy 



Who saves his country, saves all 
things, and all things saved will 
bless him; who lets his country 
die, lets all things die, and all 
things dying curse him.*' 




By 
M. Weldon Sowards 



1A X 



-S^eA 



Copyright, 1912 
By M. W. Sowards 



©CI.A319475 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY 

TO OUR COUNTRYMEN, OUR DEVOTION TO WHOSE LASTING 

WELFARE HAS INSPIRED US TO WRITE THIS VOLUME, 

IT IS FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 



To My Countrymen : 

In a secluded place in the mountains of 
Kentucky, I conceived the design of writing 
this volume, that occupied and amused many 
of my leisure hours. 

While I am not a Pessimist or a Cynic, it is 
my purpose to sound a note of warning and 
to arouse my countrymen to a realization of 
the grave dangers that menace our free insti- 
tutions — the prevalence of political venality 
and the reign of corrupt political bosses and 
predatory interests. 

If this book shall serve in the least to create 
a sound public sentiment and to stay political 
corruption, then I have not written in vain. 

M. WELDON SOWARDS. 

Versailles, Kentucky, June 17, 1912. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY 



CHAPTER I. 

Democracy as Exemplified in Athens and Rome. 
The Mother of Arts and the Eternal City 
in Reality Aristocracies. 

For over two thousand years philosophers and 
sages have speculated on the relative merits of 
monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, with 
widely divergent opinions as to which is best 
suited to men's government. 

The political dogma of the " divine right of 
kings to govern wrong" long ago was exploded. 
The tyrant has no place in governmental economy 
and by no argument can arbitrary power be sus- 
tained. But, as between the despotism of a tyrant 
and the despotism of democracy as exemplified in 
the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, the 
former should be preferred. 

We are not championing the cause of monarchy, 
though we frankly confess that the monarchy of 
Great Britain is superior to several so-called re- 
publics. As indicated by the title of this book, it 
is our purpose to expose the shams of democracy. 

The advocates of popular government are wont 
to cite ancient Athens as the most illustrious ex- 
ample of democracy. But that short-lived and 
ephemeral nation, that blushed on the plain of 
Attica, was in reality an aristocracy; for two- 
thirds of the people of Attica were slaves. The 



8 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Parthenon, "the Glory of Greece," and all the 
noblest architectural monnments of Athens were 
constructed from the tribute cruelly wrung from a 
hundred dependencies. And, while it is true that 
all the citizens had an equal voice in its govern- 
ment, they- were generally led by demagogues. 
The State was almost constantly rent with in- 
ternal dissensions and political rivalries and kept 
in almost perpetual turmoil. 

As philosophy and oratory were cultivated al- 
most to perfection at Athens, it has caused the 
advocates of democracy to boast of the advan- 
tages the free Athenians enjoyed in the cultiva- 
tion of those arts. While we would not in the 
least seek to disparage the use of those arts, yet 
it is an undoubted fact that often cunning and 
unprincipled politicians gifted with eloquence by 
the seductive power of oratory would excite the 
prejudices and passions of the people and by their 
demagogic and impassioned appeals would delude 
them and incite them to approve measures detri- 
mental to the State. There also flourished at 
Athens a species of philosophers called sophists, 
whose subtlety could convince the people of almost 
anything. And demagogues utilized such specious 
pleas to mislead the credulous multitudes. Thus 
in our own tongue we have the words demagogue 
and sophistry, derived directly from the Greek, 
both terms being used in an odious sense, the 
opprobrium attaching to them because of the per- 
nicious influence of the demagogues and sophists 
on the politics of Athens. 

Thus, while all the citizens of Athens were 
vested with the elective franchise, they were un- 
der the domineering influence of a few ambitious 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 9 

spirits, who controlled the destinies of the State. 

That the glory of Athens is not to be attributed 
to democracy is evident when we consider that 
the age of Pericles was the Golden Age of Greece. 
It was during his administration as archon that 
the Parthenon was constructed and Athens 
reached the zenith of her splendor. 

But, while Pericles professed to be a democrat, 
he so swayed the people by his wonderful elo- 
quence that party lines vanished, all opposition 
disappeared and aristocrats and democrats alike 
vied in doing him homage. No monarch ever pos- 
sessed power more absolute. He was the Louis 
XIV. of Athens, dictator, the master of the State, 
the undisputed arbiter of his country's destinies. 
It was not the democracy of Athens, but Pericles, 
that ruled that classic city. It was not public 
opinion that dictated his policies, but he dictated 
public opinion. It was not democracy, but the 
genius of Pericles, that made Athens glorious. 

The Athenians were probably the best educated 
people in all the world of either ancient or mod- 
ern times. They devoted their whole attention to 
learning, philosophy, eloquence, and the fine arts, 
in all of which they excelled. The architectural 
monuments of Greece are to-day the wonder and 
admiration of the world, and modern skill has in 
vain tried to equal them. Praxiteles had no rival 
then, and no one since has disputed his claim to 
preeminence among artists. 

If ever any people were qualified to exercise 
the elective franchise to the best advantage, surely 
it was the Athenians; for it was an intelligent 
and, on the whole, a patriotic suffrage. But, 
though Plato, Aristotle, Pericles and Demosthenes 



10 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

with others, a splendid galaxy of illustrious men, 
shed immortal glory on the Grecian name, and 
the history of Athens is glorious, yet, as already 
mentioned, since the government was almost con- 
stantly rent with internal dissensions caused by 
ambitious rivalries; since ambitious political ani- 
mosities prevailed, Athens was in an almost con- 
stant state of political agitation and turmoil and 
when not engaged in internecine strife, was gen- 
erally at war with some foreign foe. With all 
their learning, with all their wisdom, no statesman 
could pilot the ship of state through so tempestu- 
ous a sea. If he escaped Scylla, he should be 
wrecked on Charybdis. Often, too, the siren voice 
of ambition would lure the statesman-mariner to 
destruction on some "Reef of Norman's Woe." 

Two thousand years ago flourished the Roman 
republic. Like her illustrious prototype, Athens, 
Rome was almost perpetually torn with internal 
dissensions and with ambitious rivalries, fre- 
quently culminating in the greatest atrocities. 
The proscriptions of Marius and Sulla, rivals for 
power in the Roman republic, are among the most 
revolting in the whole history of the world. True, 
Rome grew and waxed strong and great. Her 
vast and rich conquests had augmented her wealth 
and she had become opulent and powerful. But 
there followed in the wake of all that wealth an 
excessive indulgence in luxuries, the enervating 
effect of which sapped her vital strength and 
caused a rapid decline in virtue and patriotism. 
Therefore Rome became corrupt. The bestowal 
of largesses was prevalent and the saying was 
current that "everything was venal at .Rome." 
The struggles of Brutus and Cassius were the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 11 

expiring agonies of the republic. Augustus Caesar 
had triumphed and was sole master of the Roman 
world. 

The advocates of democracy can find nothing 
to console them in the history of Rome. Gran- 
deur and glory alone do not constitute true na- 
tional greatness. Rome was a republic in name 
only. Though she clung with idolatrous devotion 
to constitutional forms ; though the Roman stand- 
ard bore the pompous initials, S. P. Q. R., the 
Senate and People of Rome, those terms were in 
reality but bitter irony. For, like Athens, two- 
thirds of the people of Rome herself were slaves 
and, like Athens, but on a much larger scale, she 
ruled a thousand conquered provinces with con- 
suls and pro-consuls, millions of subjects, whom 
she cruelly oppressed and plundered to gratify 
her ambition, vanity and love of power. The 
Fornm, the Colosseum and other stupendous 
works, whose remains testify to Rome's magnifi- 
cence and grandeur, were constructed from the 
tribute cruelly wrung from a world of toiling and 
suffering humanity ; and, while they stand as last- 
ing monuments of the greatness and grandeur of 
Rome, they, likewise, are perpetual memorials of 
the vanity of human greatness and oppression 
and rapine and of the degradation of men. 

One of the most fatal defects of democracy as 
illustrated in the cases of Athens and Rome is its 
instability. For, though they were pseudo- 
democracies, as we have shown, yet, as they are 
held up as admired examples of democracy by 
the advocates of popular government, it is proper 
to point out their inherent defects and to prove 
what a delusion democracy is. And we propose 



12 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

to prove that a real democracy does not, and 
never did, exist. Therefore, when we use the 
term democracy, we mean so-called democracy. 

Thus two salient examples have been produced, 
showing the instability of republics. History is 
replete with examples proving their ephemeral 
character. As for our own republic, though over 
a century old, it is still in its infancy, and is too 
young to be cited as an example of democratic 
stability. 

While numerous examples prove the instability 
of republics, still more numerous ones demon- 
strate the stability, or, at least the comparative 
stability, of monarchies. 

Almost from time immemorial China has 
existed as a nation. It is the only nation of an- 
tiquity that has continued to exist without inter- 
mission from ancient down to modern times. When 
our ancestors were savages on the Rhine; when 
they were steeped in ignorance and barbarism; 
when the Druids were practicing their supersti- 
tious and bloody rites on the soil of our mother 
country, the Chinese had a history and a litera- 
ture and were versed in many of the arts of 
civilization. 

The Nile was the home of the earliest civiliza- 
tion of the world. Its fertile valley, vegetation 
being almost spontaneous, could support millions 
of people with little cultivation. Therefore, nat- 
urally it was chosen as the seat of a great empire. 
Egypt is the name of this cradle of civilization, 
the earliest accounts of which are recorded in 
the Sacred Book. History, both sacred and pro- 
fane, agrees in according that nation high rank 
among the powerful and opulent empires of an- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 13 

tiquity. It was a martial nation, and history re- 
cords many brilliant military exploits and 
conquests of the Pharaohs. 

But the Egyptians were famed in the arts and 
sciences as well' as in war. They cultivated as- 
tronomy with wonderful success. They reared 
many stupendous structures. Egyptian genius 
built the Pyramids. In the ruins of the ancient 
and magnificent city of Memphis are the remains 
of massive and imposing structures that amaze 
the world. 

The antiquity of Egypt rivals that of China. 
Over it the Pharaohs reigned till the kingdom was 
subverted by Alexander the Great and the dy- 
nasty of the Ptolemies was established, at least, 
over 4,000 years — surely an ancient and vener- 
able nation, that makes the oldest republics look 
like babies in swaddling clothes. 

Another ancient nation that endured the storms 
of several centuries was Babylon. The Baby- 
lonian empire, celebrated in both secular and 
sacred history, existed about 500 years. Baby- 
lon its capital was a city of great magnificence 
and power, held in awe by neighboring nations. 

Assyria, its capital Nineveh, one of the greatest 
and grandest cities of antiquity, was an empire 
of wonderful power, that had subdued many na- 
tions. It lasted about 400 years. 

All those monarchies existed for centuries, some 
far beyond any period covered by the most 
favored republics. In fact in all Oriental govern- 
ments a republic was never dreamed of, and the 
people did not in all the Orient have the most 
remote conception of constitutional government. 
It was foreign to the Oriental genius, that de- 



14 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

spised simplicity and delighted in gorgeous dis- 
play and magnificence, base and servile races, 
content to serve a despotic master. 

Rome was at first a kingdom and remained so 
till the expulsion of the Tar quins, after which the 
name of king became odious to the Romans and 
they established a republic with two consuls as 
chief -magistrates. This government continued 
till Julius Caesar made himself master of Rome. 
Though the republic existed in name several years 
longer, the real power was exercised by one man. 
True, the Senate remained, but its members were 
mere puppets of Caesar. The venerable forms of 
the constitution still lingered, but the constitution 
itself was a dead letter. 

The Roman empire lasted about five hundred 
years, or till its subversion by the Goths. Com- 
paring the length of the republic with the lengths 
of the kingdom and the empire, you find a great 
disparity not in favor of the republic — a thou- 
sand to two hundred years in favor of monarchy. 
Moreover, the disparity is much greater when we 
remember that the Eastern Roman empire with 
its capital at Constantinople survived the West- 
ern Roman empire a thousand years, or till Con- 
stantinople was taken by the Turks in 1452. 

While we think of the glory that was Greece's 
and the grandeur that was Rome's, we should 
remember that the duration of the Roman re- 
public and that of the Athenian democracy were 
comparatively brief, the liberties of Greece hav- 
ing been subverted by Philip of Macedon, father 
of Alexander the Great, over three hundred years 
before the Christian era. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 15 



CHAPTER II. 

A Review of the Medieval, and Modern Nations 
of Eukope. The Ephemeeal Character of 
Democracy. 

After the curtain has fallen on ancient times 
the mediaeval nations come into view. All those 
nations of any importance were monarchical. In 
all the Oriental countries despotism has prevailed 
to the present time, though recently the Persians 
have established a parliament with some sem- 
blance of constitutional government. In Europe 
most of the governments are limited monarchies ; 
in fact all of them, at least theoretically ; for Rus- 
sia now has her duma, and still more recently 
the young Turks have established a constitutional 
government in lieu of the former despotism of 
the Sublime Porte. But they are still monarchies. 
Russia, founded by the Northman Ruric in the 
ninth century, has existed over one thousand 
years. England, too, has lasted about the same 
length of time as a monarchy, save only the in- 
significant interval of the Commonwealth of 
Oliver Cromwell and his son. France from the 
time of Charlemagne, over twelve hundred years, 
was a monarchy. It reached the zenith of its 
power under Louis XIV., the Grande Monarch, 
when it was the most powerful nation of Europe. 
Spain and Turkey have existed about the same 



16 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

length of time, Spain from the conquest of Gran- 
ada and the expulsion of the Moors and the Otto- 
man empire from the conquest of Constantinople, 
both events having occurred about the middle of 
the fifteenth century. 

Thus we have presented some historic facts 
proving the brevity of the lives of republics and 
the longevity of monarchies. Monarchies gener- 
ally die of the infirmities incident to old age and 
in nearly every case are succeeded by sturdy sons 
of the same faith; but republics "in the morn 
and liquid dew of youth,' ' are struck down, "no 
sons of theirs succeeding. ' ' 

In France in the last century and a quarter 
we have had, first, the republic, then the empire 
of Napoleon, then a tapering off into a kind of 
mongrel government, half republic and half mon- 
archy, the Citizen King, Napoleon III. and finally 
we have the republic again with its noblesse. 

Now, all nations, whether despotisms, consti- 
tutional monarchies, or republics and whether in 
ancient, mediaeval, or modern times, have not 
measured up to the requirements of just and 
beneficent government. Of course, in despotism, 
when all was merged in the "divinely hedged 
about" monarch, whose will was law and who 
could "do no wrong," the whole people were ex- 
ploited for the benefit of the sovereign, the masses 
for the benefit of the classes. An idle few, the 
nobility with exclusive privileges, with enormous 
revenues assigned them from the exchequer, were 
an intolerable burden on the oppressed people, 
on whose life blood they fattened and battened 
and whose ' ' substance they wasted in riotous liv- 
ing." Emperors and kings often squandered the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 17 

people's money in ambitions wars "to gain the 
bubble reputation at the cannon's month." San- 
guinary wars were waged by princes, ostensibly 
to uphold the honor of their country, but really 
to gratify their own ambition and love of ag- 
grandizement. In those ancient and mediaeval 
times kings and princes were everything, the 
people, nothing. The emperors and the nobility 
were always in the limelight. From the tenor of 
history one would judge that the whole purpose 
of government was to promote the welfare and 
happiness of a few sovereigns and their hangers- 
on only. The people received little or no con- 
sideration. When any matter of moment arose, 
the great question was, not whether this law or 
that law would benefit the people, but whether it 
would redound to the honor and glory of the 
king. Loyalty to the state was loyalty to the 
king. Patriotism consisted in faithfully serving 
his majesty. 

Of course, as we have already observed, despot- 
ism can not be defended. Arbitrary power can 
not stand the light of intelligence. It can exist 
only in the sable night of ignorance and supersti- 
tion. Before the dawn of enlightenment it dis- 
solves like dew before the morning sun. 

So that, in all enlightened monarchies the pow- 
ers of the sovereign are restricted by constitu- 
tions. In England the king is shorn of nearly all 
power. 

However, some despotisms have been benefi- 
cent. In the ancient Roman empire the people 
enjoyed freedom and happiness under the great 
and good Antonines. But Rome, that had her 
Antonines, also, had her Nero and her Caligula 



18 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

and a long succession of cruel and profligate ty- 
rants, who oppressed the people and whose am- 
bitious wars of conquest and aggrandizement ex- 
hausted the empire, entailed dire woe on the 
people and finally culminated in the downfall of 
the empire, on whose ruins rose the modern na- 
tions of Europe. 

Of all the forms of government, democracy is 
the most transient, monarchy, the most enduring. 
And, while we are not advocating monarchy, as 
the best form of government, yet, just as in con- 
sidering the character of any structure, it is 
proper to inquire as to its strength and stability, 
so in considering the forms of government, it is 
equally proper to determine which one in the most 
eminent degree possesses the elements of dura- 
bility. In the light of history democracy in al- 
most every instance has proved "a house built 
on the sand." 

The history of the Italian republics during the 
Middle Ages, the brief commonwealth of the 
Cromwells in England, as well as all ancient re- 
publics, prove the ephemeral character of democ- 
racv. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 19 



CHAPTER III. 

The Rise of the Republic of the United States. 

As ancient history had discredited democracy 
and mediaeval times proved it an ignominious 
failure, it was foreseen by its advocates that, un- 
less some new experiment could demonstrate its 
success, it must be eternally doomed. Therefore, 
the triumph of the American arms over Great 
Britain and the establishment of the independence 
of the United States encouraged the advocates 
of popular government to hope for a realization 
of the dream of the ages. Then followed the 
French revolution with its bloody drama, the 
Reign of Terror, which proved that, when democ- 
racy was given full sway, it could be as arbitrary, 
tyrannical, and as guilty of the most atrocious 
crimes as the most heartless and cruel tyrants. 
It required nearly 2,000 years for the world to 
produce a Nero, a Caligula, an Ivan the Terrible, 
and a few other cruel tyrants; but in the brief 
space of a few months democracy in France pro- 
duced such monsters as Robespierre and Danton, 
whose brutal and inhuman crimes would have 
made the most cruel tyrants of all the ages turn 
green with envy. 

Democracy failed to secure peace, order, and 
happiness to the Gallic people, and it required 
the military power of the great Napoleon to give 



20 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

stability to France. Thus, democracy in that 
country proved an evanescent dream. 

Still, the advocates of popular government, 
though realizing its miserable failure in France, 
reposed faith in the American republic, recogniz- 
ing it as the only nation that promised any hope 
for republican government. While they surveyed 
the history of the world with its strewed wrecks 
of republics, only one solitary example remained 
that promised any hope of success to the friends 
of democracy. The United States were the cruci- 
ble in which self-government was to be tried, and 
by that test it was to succeed, or fail. 

The United States began their national exist- 
ence with the ratification of the Constitution in 
1789. Some members of the Constitutional Con- 
vention, including Hamilton and Adams, favored 
a strong government, while others like Jefferson 
firmly championed the State-rights doctrine. 
After many long and acrimonious debates their 
deliberations resulted in a compromise of the vari- 
ous conflicting views and the formation of the 
present Constitution. 

The Declaration of Independence had affirmed 
that "all men are born equal.' ' And it was the 
earnest purpose of the majority of the Conven- 
tion to establish a government "of the people, 
for the people, by the people.' ' But the Consti- 
tution to become effective must be ratified by 
three-fourths of the States; so that some provi- 
sions not in accord with the extreme views of 
Jefferson and others were adopted. 

The advocates of monarchy in the Convention, 
while few, exercised an influence far out of pro- 
portion to their numerical strength; and to this 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 21 

day it is hard to tell who left the greater impress 
on the Constitution, Hamilton or Jefferson. But 
be that as it may, the judicial decisions of Chief 
Justice Marshall strengthened the powers of the 
National Government to a pitch not dreamed of 
by the framers of the Constitution, at least, by 
the State-rights advocates, and correspondingly 
diminished the powers of the various Common- 
wealths. 

The opposite views touching the powers con- 
ferred by the Constitution on the Federal Gov- 
ernment led to the formation of two great polit- 
ical parties, the Federal and the Republican 
parties, the former advocating a strong central 
government, the latter, a strict construction of 
the Constitution. Party feeling ran high ; crimi- 
nation and recrimination were indulged in; par- 
tisan passions swayed men's minds, and blind, 
partisan devotion, against which Washington had 
solemnly warned his countrymen, warped their 
judgment and led them to espouse measures, not 
from a patriotic impulse, but from the party ad- 
vantages they would confer. Even the lofty char- 
acter of Washington himself in his time did not 
save him from the bitter reproaches and calumny 
of partisan rancor. 

The divergent views touching the proper con- 
struction of the Constitution left open a delicate 
and momentous question that in subsequent years 
was to excite grave apprehensions for the safety 
of the Republic and to culminate in the awful 
Civil War that seriously menaced the dismember- 
ment of the Union. 

Thus, at the very threshold of our national ex- 
istence germs of decay were injected into the Con- 
stitution. Fortunately, the Union, though shaken 



90 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



from center to circumference, was finally saved; 
but political prejudices and animosities, always 
so fatal to republics, have grown in intensity and 
become so deep-seated and universal, that the 
devotees of party, unmindful of their country, no 
longer worship, as their fathers did, at the shrine 
of patriotism and their country, but sacrilegi- 
ously prostrate themselves before the altars of 
Moloch and Mammon. 

Never was a more false and pernicious polit- 
ical dogma proclaimed than "that all men are 
born equal." The inferences drawn from it in 
support of popular government are monstrous 
and totally at variance with all scientific princi- 
ples and with common sense itself. From that 
dogma is inferred the pernicious political prin- 
ciple that universal suffrage for men is the best 
security for the people's liberties and the firmest 
basis for constitutional government. 

It is not true that "all men are born equal." 
God never created all men alike. He made but 
one Shakespeare, one Napoleon, and one Lincoln. 
Men are very unequally endowed by nature. She 
has not been prodigal with her gifts, and her 
richest endowments she does not bestow in pro- 
fusion. Among millions of people are only a few 
men of great talents, and genius is still more 
rare; while, as to the rest of mankind, many 
possess inferior gifts in great variety and in vari- 
ous degrees, but the residue is numbered with 
the common herd. 

Now, nothing could be more preposterous than 
to proclaim, as the advocates of democracy do, 
that the best of mankind should be ruled by the 
worst. Yet, this is precisely the doctrine advo- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 23 

cated by the adherents of popular government. 
For universal suffrage is the very essence of their 
creed, and faith in the multitude's wisdom and 
patriotism, its cardinal principle. 

It can not be controverted that wisdom and 
virtue in the highest degree abide in the few — 
in the aristocracy — that is, in the best citizen- 
ship; not necessarily men of wealth, for riches 
alone do not constitute true aristocracy. Yet, ac- 
cording to the tenets of democracy, this class 
that possesses the most wisdom and the most 
virtue, so essential in every beneficent govern- 
ment, must be shorn of most of its power, and 
the fickle and servile multitude be clothed witli 
sovereignty. 

When did the multitude ever display superior 
wisdom, or virtue? Every triumph of art, every 
great achievement augmenting the human happi- 
ness, and every crowning glory of national great- 
ness was accomplished by individuals, was the 
handiwork of genius. The multitude did not dis- 
cover America, nor did they disclose to the world 
the art of printing. To their credit are no great 
achievements in literature, the arts, or the sci- 
ences ; but all the improvements that have added 
to the comfort and happiness of mankind from 
the earliest inventions and discoveries down to 
the steam-engine, the powers of electricity, the 
telephone, wireless-telegraphy, and aeroplanes 
—were the achievements of genius. To imagine 
the world without its celebrated characters, with- 
out its great inventors and discoverers, and be- 
reft of its brilliant lights in literature, the arts 
and the sciences, would be to picture to ourselves 
the period of the Stone Age, the age of paganism, 
degradation and savagery. 



m DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

By what magic wand, then, are the multitudes 
in themselves incapable of progress and in all 
the ages opposed to it, to be converted into an 
oracle of political wisdom? When did they be- 
come endowed with the capacity and virtues that 
would qualify them to sway the destinies of a 
nation? 

Of all the arts, that of government is one of 
the most abstruse, difficult and perplexing. It re- 
quires statesmen of consummate ability and often 
genius of the highest order to solve the weighty 
problems that confront the administration of gov- 
ernment. 

That this government, founded on universal 
suffrage, therefore, should have failed in the ob- 
jects for which it was created, should excite no 
wonder in the minds of any intelligent persons. 
And that it has ignominiously failed, history 
presents ample evidence and each successive day 
but adds cumulative proof to the shameful record 
of lust of power, graft, corruption, political de- 
bauchery and public plunder. He who imagines 
that he is in the possession of those liberties in- 
tended for our enjoyment by our forefathers is 
but nourishing an hallucination — unless he be one 
of the privileged few whose self-constituted right 
it is to despoil the American people. 

The reasons for the failure of the Constitution 
are numerous, the most salient of which we shall 
endeavor to present. The immediate and under- 
lying cause of this failure was the attempt to level 
all ranks and to place all men on an equality. 
Such attempts have always failed and always 
will fail, because they are against the eternal laws 
of nature that are as immutable as the laws of 
the Medes and Persians. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 25 

To sustain our position, we quote no less an 
authority than Sir Edmund Burke, who says : 
" Those who attempt to level never equalize. In 
all societies consisting- of various descriptions 
of citizens some descriptions must be uppermost. 
The levelers, therefore, only change and pervert 
the natural order of things; they load the edifice 
of society by setting up in the air what the solid- 
ity of the structure requires to be on the ground.'' 

Class distinctions are, therefore, natural dis- 
tinctions that defy all attempts to change their 
relative positions in society. Of course, there are 
no iron-clad and fast rules, no inexorable laws to 
exclude the unworthy from coveted high polit- 
ical and social stations. For vicious qualities are 
often obscured by the glamour of wonderful tal- 
ents displayed in various enterprises of human 
endeavor, brilliant forensic oratory, or the tri- 
umphs of military glory. 

It is not only natural, but just and right that 
there be class distinctions. The lower orders of 
society instinctively recognize and are generally 
reconciled to them. The levelers are, as a rule, 
ambitious demagogues, who seek to advance their 
political fortunes by exciting the passions of the 
ignorant and credulous multitude and arraying 
them against the higher classes. If a man in the 
lowest ranks possesses the qualities that fit him 
for a position in the highest ranks, then those 
qualities should enable him to attain to it. But 
the barriers should not be removed; he should 
surmount them. 

Of course, all should be equal before the law. 
The same punishment should be inflicted on all 
alike, whether princes or paupers, when guilty 



26 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY. 

of the same offenses or crimes. No one's high 
rank, wealth, or social standing should screen 
him from just punishment under the laws of his 
country, to which all alike should be amenable. 
But, as shown by experience, in every age and 
in every nation, it is necessary to the happiness 
of all that the distinctions remain. The good 
breeding, learning, refinement and culture of the 
higher classes render them superior to the lower 
classes, and to destroy the distinction would be 
to degrade the former. Thrown together with 
diametrically opposing views and sentiments, 
there would be constant friction and no harmony 
among them; but discord and pandemonium 
would reign and peace and good will would be 
relegated to oblivion. 

Now, what are the characteristics of the higher 
classes that distinguish them from the lower? 
Though the higher classes are generally rich or 
well-to-do, yet affluence alone does not constitute 
true aristocracy. For one may be very wealthy, 
but boorish, unrefined and vulgar, may lack the 
main qualifications. Wealth is not essential to 
it; it is only an incident to it. While wealth 
abounds in the upper classes, it is only because 
it affords advantages for acquiring those qualifi- 
cations that constitute true aristocracy. It takes 
means to acquire a liberal education and the cul- 
ture so essential in polite society. 

Good breeding, manners, culture, generosity, 
integrity and chivalry are the chief requisites of 
true aristocracy. 

Our government, as already shown, was 
founded, not on the rule of the best citizens, but 
on manhood suffrage, all citizens, the good, the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 27 

bad and the indifferent, having an equal voice 
in the government. This includes all males 
twenty-one years of age and over, except idiots 
and a few others excluded by law; and in our 
own State of Kentucky practically all the males 
of age exercise the elective franchise. The ig- 
norant, the base, the debauched, the "floaters," 
all indiscriminately vote and vote indiscrimi- 
nately. Matters of great public moment and im- 
portance, of which they know no more than a 
Hottentot and care less, are often decided by 
their votes. Frequently, especially in close con- 
tests, this corrupt element holds the balance of 
power and their votes are a decisive factor in 
them. This debauchery of the suffrage has con- 
tinued from the very foundation of the govern- 
ment down to the present time, though it began 
on a much larger scale with the administration of 
Andrew Jackson. 

The old Federal party soon disintegrated, and 
for a long time there was practically but one 
political party in existence — the Republican 
party, which was supreme. With its overwhelm- 
ing preponderance of power there was no neces- 
sity for it to corrupt voters in order to win. And 
though, no doubt, much trickery and chicanery 
were resorted to even in those early times, yet, 
political machines had not then been built and 
great political "bosses," as we know them to-day, 
had not then appeared. But with the advent of 
Jackson a new era began in American politics. 
He introduced the ' ' spoils system, ' ' claiming that 
"to the victor belong the spoils," a most perni- 
cious system, that has done more to corrupt poli- 
tics than all other agencies combined. Behold 



28 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

the noble offspring of this abominable system, 
the sachems of Tammany Hall, Tweed, Murphy 
and Croker; also Cox, Whallen and hundreds of 
others, who have plundered and despoiled the 
American people — nobilissimi fratres. Surely 
they ought to venerate their noble ancestor. Yet 
Jackson is a canonized hero of the Democratic 
party, though it has not always followed in his 
footsteps, for he was an ardent friend of the 
Union and had no patience with the doctrine of 
nullification. He threatened to hang Calhoun 
higher than Haman for his treason. Jackson was 
a man of iron will, lofty integrity and indomit- 
able courage; but, like all other men, had his 
faults. Though democratic in his manners, he 
possessed a violent temper and was imperious 
and domineering towards all who did not agree 
with his political policies. Sworn to support the 
Constitution, he violated it; a professed demo- 
crat and violent in his opposition to monarchy, 
he overawed Congress and secured the passage 
of his pet measures. 

As hero worship had run mad, Jackson's popu- 
larity knew no bounds. Such popularity is inim- 
ical to constitutional government and grave 
apprehensions were felt at the time for free in- 
stitutions. In the Senate Webster fulminated in 
vain against Jackson's unconstitutional meas- 
ures. Jackson broke with both Clay and Cal- 
houn. A bitter animosity prevailed between Clay 
and Jackson that continued the rest of their 
lives. Clay was hounded for almost the rest of 
his political career by Jackson and his partisans 
with the hue and cry of "bargain and sale." 
Though it was false and as base a calumny as 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 29 

was ever uttered, it served its purpose to com- 
pass the defeat of the Great Pacificator for the 
presidency. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun would 
have added much more luster to the presidency 
than they could have received from it. They 
were known as "The Great Trio/' the three 
ablest men of their time. But they had to yield 
to the fiat of the political "boss," who happened 
to be the hero of New Orleans, who designated 
his successor in the White House and the rest of 
his life dictated the policies of the Democratic 
party. Clay with all his personal magnetism and 
wonderful eloquence, Webster with all his 
splendid oratorical talents, and Calhoun with all 
his masterly logic were no matches for the Sage 
of the Hermitage, whose remarkable popularity 
exercised a spell over the American people. 

Jackson, we have seen, designated his succes- 
sor, Martin Van Buren. Van Buren was an 
astute politician, a great power in New York 
politics, and a faithful and pliant tool of Jackson, 
a mere puppet to do his bidding. Jackson in 
gratitude to his faithful vassal for his valuable 
services handed him a juicy plum; but before 
the end of his administration it turned into a 
lemon. 

Van Buren had servilely carried out the poli- 
cies of his predecessor. The ill-advised measures 
of Jackson had produced their natural effects in 
an appalling panic that wrought universal con- 
sternation and ruin. Jackson had sown the wind 
and Van Buren reaped the whirlwind. A polit- 
ical ground-swell swept the Democratic party 
from power. William Henry Harrison was 
elected president by an immense majority. 



30 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCKACY. 

The Whigs had twice nominated the Hero of 
Tippecanoe for the presidency, as the most avail- 
able candidate. Clay and Webster, trne and tried 
statesmen, who had rendered great public ser- 
vices to their country, achieved exalted fame, and 
who had earned the gratitude of their party and 
their country, were thrust aside and a general 
with no experience in statecraft and not fitted 
for so exalted a station, was elevated to the chief- 
magistracy, simply because he was the most 
available candidate. 

Harrison lived but one month and was suc- 
ceeded by John Tyler. A great political sensa- 
tion was created by his veto of the National Bank 
charter, passed by the Whig Congress. 

The question of a National Bank had been one 
of the main issues of the presidential campaign 
and the Whig party was committed to the policy 
of establishing such a bank, but could not muster 
strength enough to pass the bill over the Presi- 
dent's veto. Thus, Tyler prevented his party 
from redeeming one of the main pledges it had 
made the people. Of course, his veto made him 
obnoxious to the Whigs, for all their hopes of 
carrying out their policies were blasted. 

Verily, the politician is an unknown quantity; 
his ways are dark and past finding out. Tyler 
accepted the nomination of the Whig party for 
the vice-presidency. That party had declared 
strongly in favor of a National bank. If Tyler 
did not believe in a National bank, as an honor- 
able man, he should not have accepted the nomi- 
nation, but let someone else have it who was in 
accord with the Whig party on that question. 
But the bright vision of the presidency dazzled 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 31 

John, and, if only he could reach it, he would 
not let a mere trifle like principle or consistency 
intervene between him and the coveted honor. 

Even if Tyler had not avowed himself an ad- 
vocaie of a National Bank, silence under such 
circumstances would naturally be construed as 
approval. Yet, while Tyler's repudiation of his 
party's principles was reprehensible, no doubt, if 
all the facts were known, there were many others 
who clamored so vociferously for a National 
Bank, who dissembled their real opinions, or had 
none, and who, under the guise of loyalty to the 
Whig party, hoped to advance their own political 
interests and gratify their own political aspira- 
tions. Their professed devotion to a National 
Bank was only a pretense and a sham to secure 
political emoluments and honors. It was like the 
cry of the silversmiths at the decay of the wor- 
ship of Diana, " Great is Diana of the Ephe- 
sians," not that they cared for the goddess, but 
because their trade had declined, since not so 
many precious gifts of gold and silver were de- 
voted to her shrine. 

Again, if Tyler was mute on the National Bank 
question previous to his nomination and during 
the presidential campaign, he was not the only one 
culpable. Why was it not ascertained before he 
was nominated how he stood on that question and 
whether he was in accord with the Whig party 
and its platform! No, that was a matter of little 
moment with the politicians, provided only he 
could deliver the votes. What cared they for his 
political opinions, if only he could help them to 
some delicious political pie! 



32 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

They did not have the prophetic ken to divine 
that precisely one month after the inauguration 
Tyler would become President and that grave and 
portentous events would happen in the political 
world; that the Whigs, elated by their unpre- 
cedented triumph, would soon be mortified at the 
failure of their most cherished measures. 

Thus, early in the history of the Republic 
party machinery had been constructed and party 
"bosses" had been enthroned in power. During 
most of the early period the Republican, or Dem- 
ocratic, party was supreme in national affairs. 

The history of the world proves that a long 
lease of almost undisputed power will corrupt the 
noblest institutions. Therefore, the Democratic 
party so long the supreme arbiter of the Nation's 
destinies gradually declined from its pristine 
purity and noble purposes, and, instead of patri- 
otically serving the country, its chief aim was to 
serve the interests of selfish and ambitious poli- 
ticians and by the corrupt use of patronage to 
perpetuate itself in power. It resorted to the 
most unscrupulous means to maintain its political 
supremacy. It formed an unholy alliance with the 
southern aristocracy, that served to perpetuate 
the institution of slavery. 

To this end, it favored the war with Mexico. 
For the chief inspiration of that war was the de- 
sire to extend the domain of slavery. Thus the 
parties were divided on sectional lines, the South- 
ern States favoring the annexation of Texas, while 
the Northern States opposed it. 

The Whigs declared against annexation, as it 
would add more slave-territory to the Union. For 
the same reason the Democratic party favored it, 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 33 

as it would augment the strength of that party. 
The political prestige and power of the Southern 
States had begun to decline, and the Southern men 
saw that, unless something was done to increase 
their power, the institution of slavery would be in 
grave peril. Hence, with great satisfaction they 
welcomed the opportunity for extending the do- 
main of their favorite institution. The Whigs put 
forward Henry Clay as their candidate ; the Dem- 
ocrats, James K. Polk, who was elected. 

While the South was strengthened by the acces- 
sion of Texas, her political power was rapidly 
slipping away from her. The anti-slavery senti- 
ments in the North were growing by leaps and 
bounds. Those sentiments were reflected in the 
modified views of northern Democrats on that 
question. They could no longer be driven by the 
southern lash. The clash soon came and the doom 
of slavery was sealed. 

The Democratic party was now rent asunder on 
the great slavery question. It now had two wings, 
— and they were not an angel's wings, either — 
one led by Douglas, the other by Breckenridge ; 
but it could soar to no great political heights with 
them. The election of Lincoln was assured. 

A sectional candidate had been chosen presi- 
dent. It was now the North arrayed against 
the South, anti-slavery against slavery. 

Lincoln had no authority to interfere with the 
South 's favorite institution, as it existed in the 
Southern States, and expressly so declared in his 
inaugural address. It was a matter purely of 
police regulation and beyond the jurisdiction of 
the national authority. It was absolutely safe in 
every State where it was approved by the people, 



34 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCE AC Y. 

and could be abolished only by an amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States, which 
would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the 
States. 

But the Southern people still regarded an abo- 
litionist president a serious menace to slavery. 
For, though Lincoln had avowed his determina- 
tion not to molest it as it existed in the Southern 
States, yet, the Southern people remembered 
that during the presidential campaign he had de- 
clared that "the nation could not exist half slave 
and half free. " What could that mean! It could 
not mean that the slave domain was to be extended 
so as to embrace the whole Union ; it could mean 
only, that, if the Union was to be preserved, the 
most cherished institution of the South must be 
abolished. Slavery was not only to be excluded 
from the territories, but the sacred and sovereign 
powers of the Southern States were to be invaded 
and their constitutional rights violated. They 
claimed, and had always claimed, that slaves 
were their property and that, like mules, cattle, or 
any other kind of property, they had the right to 
take them into the territories, and that any re- 
striction of that privilege was a palpable viola- 
tion of the Constitution. Calhoun, in an able speech 
presenting a brilliant array of facts and specious, 
subtile, and plausible arguments, strove to main- 
tain these views. But Congress had repeatedly 
passed laws in conflict with these opinions, which 
served only to increase the friction between the 
two sections and to exasperate and inflame the 
southern mind. And when the Southern people 
saw, or thought they saw, a deliberate purpose on 
the part of the abolitionists to assail slavery right 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 35 

in the Southern States themselves, where it exist- 
ed in conformity to the Constitution and the laws 
in their opinion the time had come for them either 
to give up the institution on which they believed 
depended all their wealth and power, or to sever 
their connection with the Union. What hope could 
they have in the Constitution to safeguard their 
rights when in their view it had been repeatedly 
violated? Had not the abolitionists declared that 
the Constitution was "a league with hell?" This 
was virtually an acknowledgment that the Consti- 
tution protected slavery. But so violent were they 
in their opposition to it that they assailed even the 
sacred Constitution itself. Those fanatics kept the 
country in a constant state of turmoil, perpetually 
harassing the Southern people, interfering with 
their domestic concerns, by the "underground 
railroad" and other devices effecting the escape 
of slaves and undermining the laws of the 
Southern States. What right had they to inter- 
fere with slavery in these States ? So far as this 
institution was concerned, they were as independ- 
ent as England, France, or any other nation. The 
abolitionists had just as much right to interpose 
for the emancipation of the serfs of Russia. They 
were not responsible for the evils of slavery and 
they had no moral or legal right to molest it. 
The fugitive slave-law was a just and righteous 
measure to protect the property of the Southern 
people. For the Constitution declares that no one 
shall be deprived of his property "without due 
process of law. ' ' Was spiriting away their slaves 
depriving the Southern people of their property 
' ' by due process of law ? ' ' Yet, the fugitive slave- 
law aroused a storm of indignation in the North, 



36 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

which was a confession of northern contempt for 
southern constitutional rights. As all other 
odious laws, which are against public sentiment, 
they could not be enforced ; and the southern peo- 
ple saw that this safeguard was inoperative and 
of no avail to protect slavery from northern ag- 
gressions. On both sides, too, were hot-heads and 
extremists, who opposed all compromise and con- 
ciliatory measures. 

While the southern people had just grievances 
against the North, on the other hand, the North 
had some equally just grievances against" the 
South. The arguments of Calhoun about the right 
of slaveholders to take their slaves into the ter- 
ritories were ingenious, but not sound. As has al- 
ready been stated, slavery was a matter of police 
regulation to be determined by each State for 
itself. It certainly was within the jurisdiction of 
any State to establish, or abolish the institution. 
No property is sacred against the law. Anyone 
may be deprived of his property, but it must be 
by "due process of law." The Nation has abso- 
lute sovereignty over the territories and Con- 
gress absolute jurisdiction over them, including 
the police powers and the right to t exclude slavery. 
Yet, the southern people wanted to force slavery 
into some of the territories against the will of a 
large majority of the people, which served only to 
exasperate and increase their mutual animosity. 

That slavery was wrong is now universally ac- 
knowledged. It put a premium on idleness and 
encouraged indolence. One of its most deplorable 
evils was the fact that it widened the breach be- 
tween the rich and the poor. Slavery made class 
distinctions more pronounced, sharply differen- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 37 

tiating the aristocracy and the great common 
people. 

Though the aristocracy constituted but a small 
fraction of the southern population, the common 
people greatly preponderating, yet, the former by 
reason of their wealth, superior intelligence and 
influence had acquired political power far out of 
proportion to their numerical strength, and were 
the real governing power. 

It is true that the Constitutions and laws did not 
recognize class distinctions ; that theoretically the 
common people possessed all the rights and priv- 
ileges accorded the aristocracy and were in every 
respect their equals and peers. But, as we have 
previously observed, all the constitutions and 
laws in the world, if you pile them up like Ossa 
on Pelion, will not alter natural conditions and 
eternal principles. 

As we have already observed, slavery widened 
the breach between the two classes. The aristoc- 
racy hated the common people, who reciprocated 
it. Even the slaves shared the feelings of their 
masters and called the poor people "poor white 
trash. ' ' 

Slavery by bringing labor into disrepute set 
its seal of condemnation on honest toil, and thus 
in the midst of constitutions and laws only the 
images of liberty and equality remained. 

In a political campaign the southern orators, 
dilating on the right of secession, or nullification, 
or, in other words, the State rights doctrine, elo- 
quently expounding the principles of their party, 
would arouse their hearers to a high pitch of en- 
thusiasm. They would expatiate on their favorite 
doctrines, commending them to their constituents 



38 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

as the very palladium of their liberties, the bul- 
wark of the sacred rights of freemen, sentiments 
that met the hearty applause of their hearers. But 
the love for them that the orator professes is the 
love of Judas. His demagogic appeals, however, 
deceive them and the ignorant and credulous mul- 
titude give him their votes, all that he cares for 
and all that he wants, that he may gratify his polit- 
ical ambition and enjoy the honors and emolu- 
ments of office. 

With all the cant about liberty and State rights, 
all the learned dissertations on the Constitution 
and the laws, with all the displays of brilliant 
parliamentary eloquence, it is a solemn fact that to 
the masses in a large measure the Constitution 
and the laws were not only inadequate to secure 
them their rights and liberties, but were to a great 
extent null and void. 

It is true that the ignorant and illiterate voters 
should be eliminated from the electorate. The 
suffrage should be intelligent, and only persons 
capable of judging men and measures should be 
allowed to exercise it. But why make a mockery 
of the Constitution and the laws ? Why support a 
sham and a farce? The whole business is a con- 
temptible piece of political jugglery. Why should 
the Constitution and the laws recognize an illiter- 
ate suffrage? It is from this suffrage that come 
nearly all the "floaters," who corrupt and de- 
bauch the electorate. Ignorant voters are the 
dupes of unscrupulous and designing men, who 
use them to promote their own selfish and ambiti- 
ous purposes. This constitutes one of the delu- 
sions of democracy. Nothing more forcibly illus- 
trates this than the Civil War. 

That great conflict was waged on the part of 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 39 

the South to perpetuate slavery. Never did any 
people display more fortitude, courage and de- 
votion to their cause than the noble and heroic 
sons and daughters of Dixie. That they firmly be- 
lieved in the righteousness of their cause none 
can doubt. But what interest did the masses of 
the people have in slavery? They did not own 
slaves. They belonged to the planters and the 
wealthy classes. Yet, it was the great common 
people that fought the battles of the Confederacy 
— that is to say, they fought for the preservation 
of an institution in which they had no interest 
whatever, but on the other hand, an institution 
diametrically opposed to their highest welfare ; or, 
in other words, the working men of the South 
fought for an institution that deprived them of 
employment. Yet, they endured all the hardships 
and privations of a four years sanguinary war 
and many not only fought, but bled and died in 
that fratricidal conflict, paradoxical as it may 
seem, in order that a few might enjoy the luxury 
of owning slaves and that the infamous slave 
traffic might flourish, the greatest enemy that 
honest labor ever encountered. We know it is 
claimed that they fought for southern rights. But 
they fought for a southern wrong. Besides, we 
have already shown that the masses of the people 
had no rights ; they were dominated by the slave 
holding aristocracy. 

Here we have a people deluded and misled by 
designing men. While, as we have already ob- 
served, the motives of most of the people were 
pure, there is no doubt that the politicians had 
ambitious and selfish designs in view ; they sought 
lofty positions, fame and power. The questions 
of secession and slavery held a subordinate place 



40 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

in their minds. Their ambition was so vaulting 
and their love of power so inordinate, that they 
were willing to see their country drenched in fra- 
ternal blood and to ride into power over the 
corpses of their countrymen and the strewed 
wreck of the Union. 

Southern statesmen and politicians and most 
of the southern people professed the doctrine of 
State rights. In their view the only hope of se- 
curing our liberties was in the maintenance of 
this doctrine. They were unalterably opposed to 
strengthening the national government, denounc- 
ing it as centralization and inimical to our lib- 
erties. They deounced the Whigs and Federalists 
as aristocrats and even monarchists. They con- 
stituted themselves the special guardians of the 
Constitution and the only true friends of our free 
institutions. Yet, in the North, whose political 
principles they repudiated as repugnant to con- 
stitutional 'government, there was more real lib- 
erty and the people were more nearly on a plane 
of equality than in the South, where slavery had 
stigmatized labor and created an aristocratic 
slave-holding and ruling class in opposition to 
the great common people, who possessed little real 
influence in the government, except to determine 
what aristocrats should receive their suffrages. 

The southern politician was a kind of Hyde and 
Jekyll. While on the stump his mellifluous voice 
charmed and beguiled the common herd; meta- 
morphosed on reaching Congress, the goal of his 
ambition, his demeanor changes; he is no longer 
the champion of the plain people, but faithfully 
serves his masters, the aristocracy. 

We have given an epitome of history showing 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 41 

that in the South, where democracy in clarion 
voice was proclaimed, real democracy was a 
dream, and that, though in the North more real 
democracy prevailed, yet political demagogues 
took advantage of the prejudices of the people 
to promote their own selfish ambitions ; that in the 
South the slave-holding oligarchy reigned su- 
preme ; that in the North the abolitionists in their 
fanatical opposition to the institution of slavery, 
acting on the principle of the Dark Ages, that the 
end justifies the means, in their unholy zeal repro- 
bated and violated the Constitution, and that 
throughout the North was manifested a general 
disregard for southern constitutional rights. Thus 
slavery made democracy a farce in the South and 
opposition to it in the North nullified the Consti- 
tution. 

We shall now show that the Democratic party, 
whose power previous to the War was built on 
the institution of slavery, after the destruction of 
that institution made a political asset of the preju- 
dices of the southern people, and that in the 
North the Republican party availed itself of op- 
posite political prejudices to secure its power; 
that political questions were not decided on their 
merits, but that demagogic appeals to the preju- 
dices and passions of the people were the prime 
and most potent factors in determining them, even 
those of supreme importance. 

Practically there is but one political party, the 
Democratic party, in the South, and ever since the 
War its supremacy in that section has been but 
feebly contested. The southern people do not 
vote on living issues of vital importance to them- 
selves and the whole country; for when such is- 



42 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

sues are presented to them, they are frightened 
out of their wits by the demagogic cry of "negro 
domination, ' ! and ignoring vital questions vote 
against a spectre. The astounding and stupid 
spectacle has been presented of thousands of cit- 
izens voting the Democratic ticket, yet, wishing at 
heart for the success of the Republican party. For 
no doubt, there are thousands of electors in the 
South who are in accord with the principles of the 
Republican party. Yet, the prejudice against it 
is so deep and malignant that it requires a 'bold 
spirit to be a Republican. So, most men, to avoid 
business and social ostracism, though they really 
believe in Republican principles, vote the Demo- 
cratic ticket, but secretly wishing for Republican 
success, heave a great sigh of relief when the Re- 
publicans win. 

This solidarity is a great bane to the South. 
For fifty years that section has not had a candi- 
date for the presidency. All this time it has voted 
for northern candidates. Even now no southern 
man is seriously considered as a presidential nom- 
inee. Is not this a grave reflection on southern 
worth and statesmanship? If the Southern peo- 
ple would "let the dead bury the dead," turn 
their backs to the past; come out of the charnel 
house of dead issues and boldly face the future, 
then they would recover their long lost prestige 
and revive the glory of a long line of illustrious 
statesmen, who shed lustre on the Southland. 

The Republican party is, however, to a great 
extent responsible for the political solidarity of 
the South. The bestowal of the suffrage on ignor- 
ant negroes, the former slaves of the southern 
people was a monumental and colossal blunder 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 43 

and has proved a boomerang to the Republican 
party. In the eyes of the southern people it was 
infamous and the party that perpetrated it de- 
served the condemnation and execration of all 
honorable southern people. What must have been 
thought of a party that gave negroes complete 
control in governing the Southern States, with 
negro governors, negro senators and negro repre- 
sentatives, supreme in government affairs, that 
race of all races the most base, the most stupid, 
the most vile and the most degraded, exercising 
dominion over the intelligent and chivalrous white 
people? Think you that they can forget this in 
a single generation? Think you that they do not 
remember the shame, humiliation and degradation 
heaped on them during the reconstruction period ? 
No; the awful scenes of that deplorable era are 
too strongly impressed on the southern mind, the 
abominable acts of that infamous drama too indel- 
ibly written on the southern heart, readily to be 
forgotten. So reasoned the Southern people. 

While the Republican party reproaches the 
southerners for their political solidarity, they in 
turn retort that that party made the negro vote 
solid and produced the race issue, which was par- 
amount and overshadowed all other issues. The se- 
quel was clear. And it is passing strange that 
Republican statesmen could not divine the result ; 
that Republican politicians were so obtuse that 
they could not read the inexorable decree of fate, 
that the negro cannot exercise authority over 
white men. For the white man is born to rule, and 
rule he will, and especially will the Anglo-Saxon 
blood of the South. His methods may not always 
be strictly in accord with the Constitution and the 



44 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

laws and he may be guilty of some infractions 
of Hoyle, bnt rule he will. For self-preservation 
is the first law of nature. It is above all other 
laws and is superior to all constitutions and to all 
decrees. If the southern people had suffered an 
ignorant, base and ignoble race to rule over them, 
they would have been unworthy of southern chiv- 
alry and of the Southland's noble traditions and 
glorious history, and would have richly deserved 
the humiliation and degradation that fate would 
have had in store for them. But they proved 
themselves worthy of their noble and gallant 
sires. Men who had for four long years fought 
with almost unexampled intrepidity and fortitude 
against tremendous odds and who were overcome 
only by the superior power and resources of the 
North, exhausted though they were, were of too 
noble a mold tamely to submit to negro domina- 
tion. 

The reconstruction era was born of the pas- 
sions of the War. Unprincipled politicians availed 
themselves of those passions to promote their 
own selfish ambitions. They fanned the flames of 
sectional animosity to effect their own base and 
nefarious schemes. The South furnished an in- 
viting field for their exploitation, and thither went 
the carpet-baggers to plunder the fair Southland. 

Grant had treated Lee and his army with gen- 
erosity and magnanimity, refusing to receive the 
sword of that chivalrous southern general. He 
had spoken the memorable words, "Let us have 
peace, ' ' that seemed to augur the speedy restora- 
tion of concord and amity between the two sec- 
tions, just then emerged from the greatest conflict 
of all the ages. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 45 

But the hopes thus inspired were soon to be 
blasted. The assassination of the noble Lincoln 
immensely aggravated the animosity between the 
two sections ; for many of the northern people im- 
puted it to the southerners, who they charged had 
incited the diabolical act for revenge on their con- 
querors. The deplorable tragedy furnished the 
northern fire-eaters another brand with which to 
incite the flames of sectional hatred, and dema- 
gogues were not slow to take advantage of the 
opportunity. The passions of the northern peo- 
ple were aroused to a high pitch and vengeance 
was denounced against the southern people as the 
authors of a foul and brutal assassination. 

Lincoln's martyrdom threw the Nation into 
mourning. "The deep damnation of his taking 
off" undoubtedly called for vengeance. It, how- 
ever, was the foul work of a few conspirators, a 
conspiracy as infamous as that of Catiline in the 
ancient Roman republic. But it could not be 
charged to the brave, noble and chivalrous south- 
ern people, who always fought in the open and 
admired a brave and honorable foe. To use the 
language of Burke, who said he knew not how to 
draw an indictment against a nation, the northern 
people knew not how to indict the entire South. 
For the charge was preposterous. 

In the death of Lincoln the South lost a friend. 
No doubt, had he lived, the horrors of reconstruc- 
tion would have been avoided. He would have 
adopted a more lenient policy in dealing with the 
southern States instead of treating them as con- 
quered provinces. He would not have given them 
over to the spoliation of carpet-baggers, to the 
domination of negroes and to a reign of corrup- 



46 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

tion, a political saturnalia, that the southern peo- 
ple claim has left a foul stain on the escutcheon of 
the Eepublican party. 

"We have dilated on the sectional prejudices 
caused originally by a difference of opinion on the 
slavery question and the subsequent sanguinary 
conflict, which terminated it. 

Though the War had ended in a glorious tri- 
umph for the Union and the Nation had been ce- 
mented together with blood and iron, yet the deep 
prejudices that grew out of it exercised a per- 
nicious influence on the minds of the people of 
both sections. The passions thus excited swayed 
the political opinions of most men, who were in no 
frame of mind calmly to consider any political 
questions. Though the bloody chasm has been 
closed and a more friendly spirit prevails between 
the two sections, yet, political prejudices still sway 
them both. For over fifty years the two great pol- 
itical parties have been sectional. For over half a 
century, with a brief interval, the Republican 
party has been in power in the Nation. The fact 
that with the great Lincoln at the helm of state it 
had carried the country triumphantly through the 
greatest war of all time strengthened it with the 
people and justified their confidence in it during 
those dark hours when the Union was threatened 
with dismemberment. The Republican party was 
then, indeed, the party of the people, who loyally 
rallied to its support. For Lincoln was a man of 
the people, who subserved their interests faith- 
fully as well as with consummate ability. It was 
a new and virile party, and the money power had 
not yet debauched it. But after the assassin laid 
low the noble Lincoln, other leaders came on the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 47 

scene; dissensions rent the party; it soon began to 
decline from its pristine purity, and, like all other 
parties with a long lease of power, it became cor- 
rupt. Yet, the people blindly and fatuitously en- 
trusted it with political power. A weak minority 
offered but a feeble and vain resistance. When a 
protest was made against gross extravagance, 
graft and corruption the cry of the " bloody 
shirt" was raised to keep in line those disposed 
to desert. It was in vain to appeal for relief to 
the people, deluded by their prejudices, swayed 
by their passions and under the sinister influence 
of selfish and unprincipled politicians. 

Thus we have shown the incapacity of the peo- 
ple for self-government. But to clinch our argu- 
ment, we add that the vast majority of the people, 
even though they should be unbiased and uninflu- 
enced by political prejudices, are not capable of 
deciding grave and momentous political problems. 
If great statesmen themselves differ from the 
tariff, monetary questions, railroad problems, our 
foreign policy, and other important questions, how 
can the great mass of the voters, most of whom 
pay little, or no attention to them and a great ma- 
jority of the most intelligent of whom have but a 
superficial knowledge of them, pass intelligent 
judgment on any great and intricate question pre- 
sented for their deliberation and for their deter- 
mination at the polls! You may take the most 
intelligent communities in the United States, and 
you will find that the average elector is densely 
ignorant on all the great political questions, which 
are of vital concern to the whole country. 

The whole negro race, ignorant, stupid and de- 
praved, was suddenly vested with the elective fran- 



48 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

cliise. Now, was not that a pretty body of men to 
be endowed with the privilege of expressing judg- 
ment on the tariff, our fiscal policy, and other 
grave problems? No intelligent person doubts 
that the negro race is incapable of properly exer- 
cising the elective franchise. Yet, a great political 
party had an amendment made to the Constitution 
bestowing on them the rights of citizenship, which 
they have abused to the shame of the Republican 
party and the whole country. No doubt, it was 
deemed a wise political policy to bestow the suf- 
frage on the negro, though many of them ar: so 
destitute of principle and honor that they would 
sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage. 

But even eliminating the negro and excluding 
all the illiterate and all the corrupt elements and 
even granting that all the electors were honest 
and fairly intelligent, still they would not be capa- 
ble of grappling with and deciding grave political 
problems that tax the brains of the greatest states- 
men, and some of which even genius itself can 
hardly solve. 

But it may be said that the people may learn 
all about political questions from the statesmen 
themselves, who have made a study of them and 
informed themselves about them, and who send 
broadcast the political literature that will en- 
lighten the people on all the political subjects of 
the day. But are they enlightened? As stated be- 
fore, the masses of them are intensely ignorant on 
all important political subjects. We do not suppose 
one person in a hundred reads those congressional 
speeches that are disseminated. But what if they 
did? What light \*onld they afford them? They 
are made purely for Buncombe and are dissemin- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 49 

ated among the congressmen 's constituents for the 
purpose of influencing voters. They breathe the 
most intense political prejudice; facts are dis- 
torted ; figures are juggled with, and misrepresen- 
tation and often calumny are indulged in, for the 
sole purpose of convincing the people that their 
representatives are able and faithful servants and 
deserve their confidence and support. Of what use 
it such literature to enlighten the people, who 
ought to know the truth and not the biased and 
prejudiced opinions of politicians whose judgment 
is warped by their preconceived views and pre- 
dilections? Of course, they will argue and en- 
deavor to maintain those biased opinions. Even 
were they at heart convinced that they were wrong 
they would have to adhere to them, because they 
are the slaves of a party, whose will is law to them 
and at whose behest they must advocate any old 
opinion, or new one, such as the exigency of the 
occasion may require, or lose their seats in Con- 
gress and surrender all their honors to others 
more loyal, or rather more servile to the party. 

Again, such literature is useless to enlighten the 
people, for most of them do not want to be enlight- 
ened; because they read only one side of a ques- 
tion and nothing can induce them to read the other 
side, nor do they want to hear any speakers of 
the opposite political faith. Like the politicians, 
they are slaves to their party and will not listen to, 
or read, any political literature not in accord with 
their narrow and preconceived views. 

While it is true that the American people are 
great readers of the newspapers, yet, the press 
is to a great extent controlled by capitalists and 
the money interests, and those papers that are not 



50 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

are influenced by political prejudices ; so that the 
people receive very little light on political ques- 
tions from their journals. This brings us to a 
point on which we want to dilate at some length. 

The masses of both parties adhere with blind 
servility to them, since, as already mentioned, they 
are slaves to them. The southern master never 
cracked his whip with more effect on his slaves 
than the party lash has on the servile and obse- 
quious followers of the two great political parties. 
The followers of Mohammed himself never dis- 
played a more fanatical devotion or zeal to him 
than our modern worshippers of a political fetich 
adore their political gods. 

Men are the blind devotees of sentiment, that in 
all ages and climes has exercised a pernicious in- 
fluence on the human mind. Certain ideas, places, 
things, or parties become sacred to mortals by 
reason of the tender memories that cluster about 
them, their happy associations, or their glorious 
past. The home of an illustrious man, or the 
scene of a memorable historic event, if not always 
a sacred, is ever, at least, an interesting place. 
This sentiment is a happy one and should be cher- 
ished within the bounds of moderation. But sen- 
timent carried to an extreme, blind devotion to a 
party because of its past glorious achievements, 
when it has ceased to be patriotic, when it has de- 
generated into a party dominated by trusts and 
corporations and no longer subserves the interests 
of the great common people, should be abhorred 
and reprobated. 

Men will, however, cling with blind devotion to 
their parties. Though the pristine virtues and 
glories of those parties are traditional and they 
have long since declined from their high estate, 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 51 

are no longer patriotic and are unable and un- 
willing to meet the great and living issues of the 
day, a mere shadow of their former selves, 
they, nevertheless, exercise a magic spell over 
their devotees. Though Shakespeare says "there 
is nothing in a name," yet, with the masses 
of both parties it is all in the names. You 
may read the histories of all the great political 
parties since the foundation of the government 
from the old Federal and the old Republican par- 
ties down to the present time, down to the present 
Republican and Democratic parties, and you will 
find that the masses of the electors at every elec- 
tion, even when the victory won was most de- 
cisive and overwhelming, still clung tenaciously to 
those parties. The victories were won by the in- 
dependent voters, who held the balance of power, 
and not by the people themselves rising en masse 
and asserting their authority to overthrow the 
party in power, or to vindicate and sustain it. 

To enforce our argument we cite a few great 
presidential contests : 

Prior to 1824 presidential electors were chosen 
by the legislatures of the several States, not by 
direct popular vote. Therefore, only from that 
timers known the exact number of votes cast for 
presidential candidates. The first great political 
groundswell resulted in the election of William 
Henry Harrison over Martin Van Buren to the 
presidency in 1840. Yet, Harrison received only 
6.07 per cent, more popular votes than Van Buren. 
In 1848 Taylor received only 4.86 per cent, more 
electors than Cass. In 1872 Grant received but 
11.8 per cent more of the suffrages than Greeley, 
notwithstanding the fact that most of the South- 



52 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

ern States did not participate in the election. In 
1896 for McKinley were cast only 4.23 per cent, 
more votes than for Bryan. In 1904 Roosevelt's 
plurality was only approximately one-fifth of the 
popular vote. The instances cited are those of the 
most phenomenal political victories in the history 
of the country. Yet, even in those triumphs how 
narrow the margins is clearly seen. In other polit- 
ical contest the margins were much closer and 
in several cases the successful candidates were not 
the choices of the people. Thus by an analysis of 
presidential returns, by documentary evidence, is 
proved our contention that the great masses of the 
citizens have followed with blind devotion politi- 
cal parties and that a change of a comparatively 
few votes even in presidential triumphs regarded 
as overwhelming would have altered the results 
and effected a radical change in the history of the 
country. 

To prove beyond controversy our contention, we 
present to the reader what many of our country- 
men claim to be the political debauchery of the 
presidential election of 1896, to which we have 
already alluded, and enter into a more minute ac- 
count of that memorable political contest. The 
paramount issue of that contest was sound money, 
or free silver. Though Bryan was overwhelmingly 
defeated, yet, the Peerless One received over 6,- 
000,000 votes. McKinlev's pluralitv was about 
650,000. 

Now, it is useless to try to disguise the fact that 
the nation is normally Republican and was so at 
that time. The 650,000 votes cast against Bryan 
were not all Democratic electors, and, while many 
Republicans in the West voted for Bryan, it is a 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 53 

conservative estimate that not more than 600,000 
Democrats supported McKinley. In other words, 
only about 10 per cent of the Democratic voters 
deserted their party. The great bulk of them re- 
mained faithful and loyal to it. 

Thus a great political party, that boasts of its 
noble traditions and glorious achievements, gave 
its solemn approval to the most dangerous politi- 
cal heresy of modern times, and Bryan and other 
great orators solemnly invoked the names of Jef- 
ferson and Jackson to inflict a direful calamity on 
the country. 

The free silver heresy deluded many thousands 
of credulous voters in its time. Thousands of in- 
telligent people, too, were infatuated with it. At 
this distance from the scene and in the light of 
the present times it seems incredible that a great 
political party and so great a portion of our 
countrymen should have been so deluded. 

The result of the presidential election of 1896 
may be cited by the advocates of democracy as 
proof of the capacity of the people for self-govern- 
ment. But, while it is true that the popular ver- 
dict saved the country from the perils of free 
silver, it cannot be contended that those who sup- 
ported that visionary scheme were capable of self- 
government, and they embraced nearly half our 
countrymen. 

While it is true that thousands of patriotic Dem- 
ocrats repudiated the free silver delusion, yet, he 
is much mistaken who thinks that it was patriot- 
ism that triumphed. For thousands of Democrats 
who did not believe in free silver and many of 
whom in the Democratic primaries had opposed it, 
as strong partisans and for party regularity sup- 
ported Bryan. 



54 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Apparently overwhelming as was the defeat of 
the Boy Orator, yet, it is true, as he claimed, that a 
change of 50,000 votes would have altered the re- 
sult and elected him President. 

But how was the election of McKinley accom- 
plished? Democrats charge that a campaign fund 
of hundreds of thousands of dollars contributed 
by various corporations and placed in the hands 
of the astute and immaculate Mark Hanna, the 
great Warwick of the Republican party, served to 
convince thousands that it was their patriotic duty 
to vote for McKinley. If this is true, it was not 
patriotism that saved the nation, but it was selfish 
ambition, the hope of the spoils of office, and a 
debauched suffrage that won the day. That the 
corporations and trusts contributed generously to 
the Republican campaign fund is indubitable ; and 
Democrats charge that many hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars, or even several million, found 
way into the Republican campaign exchequer, 
and that for their country the Republican patriots 
fought and bled — the corporations and trusts. 
What a sad and humiliating example of the failure 
of popular government is here presented? In 
ancient Rome the Pretorian guard sold the im- 
perial throne to Didius Julianus, the highest bid- 
der. According to Democratic testimon7/' our mod- 
ern republic has imitated that infamous example 
by offering up the presidency at auction. What a 
great republic is this? In a grave political crisis 
patriots must be bought to save the country. 

It is, however, claimed by some that those vast 
sums contributed to campaigns by various corpor- 
ations and trusts were solely for legitimate pur- 
poses. If this is true, why has there been so much 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 55 

secrecy about them? Why have the beneficiaries 
of those contributions so strenously opposed 
every law requiring publicity of all campaign con- 
tributions ! The interests do not contribute to pol- 
itical campaigns for charitable purposes. They do 
not lavish hundreds of thousands of dollars on a 
political party merely because they are loyal sup- 
porters of it. You may call it by some euphonious 
name, if you please, but honest people will term 
it bribery. The politicians are never so honorable 
that they refuse those princely gifts. And even if 
parties were ingrates, they know that a continu- 
ance of the favors shown them imperiously de- 
mands reciprocity on their part. Therefore, no 
party can fail to be influenced by it when it accepts 
vast contributions from corporations, and particu- 
larly those politicians whose political lives depend 
on them. The interests have their lobbyists in 
every legislative hall of every State in the Union 
and in the halls of every Congress. They have 
influenced legislation and do influence it. And to 
claim that they have made vast political campaign 
contributions without expecting favorable legisla- 
tion is preposterous. 

Democrats make the grave charge that the in- 
terests asserted themselves in the framing of the 
Payne-Aldrich tariff; that those interests had to 
be placated, even if the people must be plundered ; 
that that tariff law was framed by the friends of 
the trusts, who were well paid for their campaign 
contributions, and that the Republican party was 
so grateful to them that it violated the solemn 
pledges of its national platform, repudiating the 
plighted promises made the people and bowing its 
neck to the yoke of its masters as if the corpora- 



56 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

tions and trusts owned the Republican party, body 
and soul. 

According to Democratic authority the Republi- 
can party was pledged to a downward revision of 
the tariff ; that President Taf t so expounded it on 
the hustings; that that was the impression left 
on the minds of the people and was what they 
expected; but that, instead of keeping its solemn 
pledge, it actually increased the tariff 1.17 per 
cent., and that it was guilty of deliberate perfidy 
in not relieving the people from the onerous bur- 
dens of an oppressive tariff. 

The partisans of President Taft claim that he 
has, according to his pledge, carried out the pol- 
icies of his illustrious predecessor. But a Demo- 
crat facetiously observes he must have meant that 
he had helped to carry them out, that he was one 
of the active pall-bearers who participated in the 
obsequies. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 57 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Administration of Roosevelt. — The Failure 
of Most of His Policies. 

On the demise of the late lamented McKinley, 
Roosevelt became his successor. He served out 
the unexpired term of his predecessor and was 
elected by an unprecedented majority for a full 
term. More than any other president since Jack- 
son and Lincoln he possessed the confidence and 
love of the people ; and like Jackson he designated 
his successor, William H. Taft. The people trust- 
ed him because they believed in his courage and 
honesty. They were persuaded that he advocated 
measures in the interest of the great common 
people. They trusted him, too, because they 
thought him the bitter foe of all grafters and cor- 
ruptionists and the inveterate enemy of all that 
was arrayed against civic virtue and righteous- 
ness. They admired him because they regarded 
him as a man of honest convictions with the cour- 
age to carry out those convictions. They ap- 
plauded him as a conservator of peace, a great 
pacificator, who, not bent on plunging the country 
into war, as his enemies had charged, showed his 
pacific proclivities by terminating the sanguinary 
war between Russia and Japan. 

Roosevelt had announced his determination to 
give everyone a square deal. His policy was to 



58 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

control the power of the trusts and put them under 
proper restraint, to the end that monopolies might 
be destroyed and the people no longer be pillaged 
by extortion; to regulate the railways, the great 
public highways of the nation ; that rebates and all 
other unjust discriminations should be abolished 
and that the people be assured of reasonable rates 
of transportation. He also laid great stress on the- 
conservation of the nation's forests and water 
power, much of which has been acquired by cor- 
porations and for which the nation has not re- 
ceived adequate remuneration. 

Eoosevelt won the hearts of the people, not so 
much by what he had accomplished as by the high 
resolves and the lofty purposes that seemed to 
inspire him in the administration of national af- 
fairs. A born leader of men and the idol of the 
people, no president had ever so dominated Con- 
gress and the nation as the Wielder of the Big 
Stick. 

But the aspirations of the people were not des- 
tined to be realized; their hopes were soon to be 
blasted. Eoosevelt 's cherished policies, fraught 
with so much for the welfare and happiness of the 
nation and that had kindled lofty hopes in the 
breasts of his patriotic countrymen, have failed of 
fruition. Eoosevelt is no longer at the helm of 
state. And even if he were, it is doubtful whether 
he could accomplish much in opposition to the 
representatives of predatory wealth. For, much 
better than his party, Eoosevelt would encounter 
in Congress, not the representatives of the people, 
but the spokesmen and champions of the infamous 
trusts, that while plundering the peorjle are de- 
vising new tricks and devices to evade the laws 
and to plunder them still more. Yes, the cher- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 59 

ished policies of Roosevelt have come to naught. 
The infamous trusts that were to have been re- 
strained in their rapacity we find levying still 
higher tribute on the people and pillaging them 
still moie. The prosecution of the Standand Oil 
octopus and the American Tobacco trusts has 
proved a miserable farce and grimace, and th^ 
people are left to their tender mercies. 

Corporations are very resourceful and clever in 
devising schemes to evade all legal processes. 
Civil laws are inefficacious in dealing with them. 
Heavy penalties do not. deter them from their 
rapacity; because if a heavy fine is imposed on 
them by an upright judge, he is reversed on ap- 
peal by another judge more friendly to the cor- 
porations and not so devoted to justice, or mind- 
ful of the rights of the people. Criminal punish- 
ment of the great public malefactors is the only 
effective course to curb the excesses and rapacity 
of the robber barons. The mere punishment of 
petty and subordinate officials will not correct, or 
materially mitigate the abuses. The law's meshes 
are so fine that they catch the minnows, but are too 
weak and fragile to hold the big fish. Drastic laws 
should be enacted and enforced holding the great 
heads of corporations criminally responsible and 
amenable to them. For they are the really guilty 
parties and their subordinates are mere scape- 
goats. If condign punishment were meted out to 
some of them and they were required to atone for 
their criminal conduct by serving long terms in the 
penitentiary, the people would have less cause to 
complain of the exactions of the trusts. Rocke- 
feller, Morgan and all other millionaires should 
be as amenable to the laws as the poorest and hum- 
blest citizens. 



60 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

While criminal punishment is the only effective 
remedy for the rapacity of the trusts, the com- 
plexion of Congress will have to be materially 
changed before it can be applied. The heads of the 
great trusts control Congress and will not consent 
to any legislation that will deter them from their 
criminal conduct. And so long as their unscrupu- 
lous and servile tools shall dominate Congress all 
laws will be impotent to furnish the people any 
substantial relief. But even if, by the grace of the 
corporations, we should be given the most strin- 
gent laws,corrupt judges,their servile instruments, 
and equally corrupt juries would nullify them, and 
the rich malefactors would go scot-free. This has 
often been exemplified in nearly every part of our 
country. For the corrupt influence of money is 
not confined to our legislative halls, but has in- 
vaded the courts, corrupting judges and juries and 
so contaminating our jurisprudence as to render 
it a mere farce and a sham. 

If, to appease the people, who clamor for laws, 
the interests should allow Congress to pass any 
remedial legislation, they would see to it that it 
did not operate to their prejudice. For the power 
that can corrupt Congress can, likewise, debauch 
judges and juries. 

If Roosevelt with all his wonderful power and 
influence over the people and with all his most 
strenuous exertions could not secure the adop- 
tion of those reforms so essential to the perpe- 
tuity of the nation and so vital to the happiness 
of its citizens, what hope can there be for an 
amelioration of present conditions under our sys- 
tem of government ? As in former times the Eng- 
lish clamored for the laws of Edward the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 61 

Confessor, even so do the people now cry for 
relief. But they might as well appeal to Jupiter 
or Minerva. There is no hope from a trust-ridden 
and trust-dominated Congress. Nor is there any 
hope for relief from either of the two great polit- 
ical parties. They can repose no faith in the 
Democratic party. It has "been weighed in the 
balance and found wanting." It is not capable 
of any constructive statesmanship. It can de- 
stroy, but can not build. ' i The holier than thou ' ' 
party is constantly inveighing against the tariff 
and other policies of the Republican party, per- 
petually harping on its derelictions and corrup- 
tions when the Democratic party itself is a 
"whited sepulcher." It, too, is dominated to a 
great extent by corporations, and when it is not 
dominated by them it is controlled by the 
"bosses" and the whisky interests. In the en- 
suing chapter we shall treat of the recent history 
of that party. 



62 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER V. 

Corruption and Decline of the Democratic 
Party. The Spoils Party. The Rape of 
the Governorship in Kentucky. Ken- 
tucky's Humiliation and Shame. 

While the Democratic party arrogates to itself 
all the political virtues and imputes all the polit- 
ical vices and evils to the Republican party, its 
vaunted claims of superior virtues are weakly 
attested by the solemn facts of history. As we 
have previously observed, a long lease of power 
will corrupt the best parties and the Democratic 
party was no exception to the rule. Its long 
sway of the country during the first half of the 
nineteenth century had rendered it very corrupt 
when driven from power. 

It may, however, be contended that the Demo- 
cratic party has not been dominant long enough 
in recent years to become contaminated. It is 
true that it has not had control of national af- 
fairs; but it must be remembered that that party 
is confined mainly to the Southern States. Elimi- 
nate them and you have but a shadow of it left. 
Now, as that party in nearly all the States south 
of the Mason and Dixie line has been in power 
about forty years, often without opposition and 
when opposed generally only a feeble resistance 
has been offered it, you can imagine how corrupt 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 63 

it must be. * Its record in those States has been 
a foul blot on the American name. From recon- 
struction days down to the present time it has 
maintained itself in power by corruption, intimi- 
dation, ballot-box stuffing, and all the tricks and 
chicanery the political demagogue could devise. 
Professing a supreme regard and reverence for 
the Constitution, in many respects it has ren- 
dered it nugatory. The pages of its history are 
black with political corruption and crimes. Avow- 
ing itself to be the only party of the people, it 
shows its hypocrisy by thwarting their will and 
depriving them of a free voice in the government 
of their country. We now cite a recent incident 
still fresh in the minds of men proving the total 
depravity of the Democratic party. 

In Kentucky that party had passed the infa- 
mous Goebel law to secure and perpetuate its 
power. By the provisions of that law the entire 
election machinery of the State was placed in the 
hands of the Democratic party exclusively and 
just representation was refused the Republican 
party. According to Henry Watterson, the 
Goebel law ' ' eliminated every element of chance ' ' 
in the election. It was designed by Goebel to 
make him governor. The vaulting ambition of 
that dangerous and unprincipled demagogue hesi- 
tated at no means, fair or foul, to accomplish his 
nefarious purposes. Having stolen the nomina- 
tion for governor at the famous, or rather infa- 
mous, Music Hall convention, he was the 
accredited (more properly the discredited) nomi- 
nee of the Democratic party (what a great and 
glorious party!) for that exalted office. It was 
now all over but the shouting, so thought Goebel 



64 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

and his henchmen. But, while the machine was 
efficient, its operators miscalculated the majority, 
or plurality, that in a fair election Taylor, the 
Republican candidate, would receive, and, though 
several thousand votes were stolen, they were not 
enough to overcome Taylor's lead and he was 
elected by a narrow, but safe, margin. Thus, 
though every chance seemed against him, the 
Republican candidate was elected governor. But 
Goebel and other unprincipled Democratic lead 
ers had determined to steal the governorship. So 
contest proceedings were instituted to overthrow 
the will of the people as expressed at the polls. 
A bacchanalian orgy of lawlessness and riots 
was inaugurated and lasting shame and disgrace 
brought upon the State to satisfy the ambition 
of William Goebel and some other time-serving 
and unscrupulous politicians. 

The Republicans naturally objected to being 
robbed of their hard-earned victory, particularly 
as it had been so fairly won by them. Anyone 
objects to having his property stolen. For, call 
it what you may, the unseating of Taylor, to use 
plain, unvarnished English, was as deliberate a 
theft as was ever perpetrated, howbeit accom- 
plished under the forms of law. 

The feelings of the people and party passions 
were naturally wrought up to a high pitch. No 
wonder that it culminated in a tragedy. Where 
there are so much dynamite and friction there is 
very apt to be an explosion. Goebel was assassi- 
nated near the Capitol building. 

Murder is indefensible and assassination is to 
be deplored. The party, or parties, guilty of the 
foul crime should have met with speedy and con- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 65 

dign punishment. But it must be remembered 
that two crimes were committed; the first, the 
rape of the governorship ; the second, the assassi- 
nation of Goebel. Both deserved the condemna- 
tion and reprobation of all honorable citizens. 

A monument to William Goebel was reared at 
Frankfort. Why not raise one to the "sainted'' 
memory of Benedict Arnold? He who would 
thwart the expressed will of his countrymen and 
usurp the high office of governor is the mortal 
enemy of his country and a traitor, whose crime 
merits their eternal condemnation and execration. 

The people of Kentucky, however, are no worse 
than those of other States. In our sister Com- 
monwealth of Tennessee more than once the gov- 
ernorship was stolen. And the worst feature of 
it all is that these crimes against the people's 
liberties and honor go unavenged; and, to crown 
the infamy, the perpetrators of them are after- 
wards elevated to seats of high trust and honor. 

Does any intelligent person want anything more 
to convince him of the incapacity of the people for 
self-government; that they are not capable of 
settling any political questions aright ; that, even 
were they competent, they are swayed too much 
by political prejudices and passions wisely to de- 
termine important issues of government! 

As the Democratic party, though not in power 
in national affairs, is, nevertheless, already cor- 
rupt, the people, therefore, could not expect any 
relief from their onerous burdens, or any purifi- 
cation of the political atmosphere by entrusting 
it with power in the Nation. Corruption would 
still stalk abroad and predatory wealth would 
still plunder the people. Congress would still be 



66 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

under the dominion of special interests, as it was 
under Cleveland's administration. Congress, 
which was overwhelmingly Democratic, passed 
the Wilson-Gorman tariff law, which President 
Cleveland refused to sign, denouncing it as 
" proof of party perfidy, a disgraceful surrender 
to the interests and a violation of solemn party 
pledges made the people." 

Thus you see, as we have already noted, the 
Democratic party, too, is dominated by corpora- 
tions. It is no better to-day than it was in Cleve- 
land's time, but probably worse. The same 
corrupt interests that controlled it then, being 
more powerful now, to-day would have a more 
potent influence and dominate it still more. Con- 
gress, that should be a high place of trust, would 
continue to be a high place of the trusts. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 67 



CHAPTER VI. 

Roosevelt 's Ineffective Ckusade for Good Gov- 
ernment. — His Denunciation of Graft and 
Grafters. — His Gospel of Crvic Virtue. 

In 1910 Roosevelt toured the country making 
speeches assailing graft and grafters, public high 
malefactors and corruption in exalted places, 
pleading for honesty in public and private life. 

Though his crusade against national vices and 
his strenuous efforts to stem the tide of corrup- 
tion that is threatening our free institutions is 
highly commendable, yet futile will all those ef- 
forts prove to save the nation from spoliation at 
the hands of the political "bosses" and the in- 
terests. The doughty Nimrod bearded the lion 
in his den and hunted the terrible beasts of the 
African jungles. But the beasts of prey he 
hunted in America were far more ferocious than 
any he ever encountered in the African wilder- 
ness. Roosevelt was engaged in an impossible 
task. He was exhibiting his prowess in attempt- 
ing extraordinary exploits. His Herculean ef- 
forts will be of no avail. Like Don Quixote, he 
was fighting wind-mills. He was attempting 
heroic feats that would throw into the shade the 
most daring exploits of Richard Coeur de Lion, 
or the Knights of the Round Table. And, how- 
ever we may applaud his romantic efforts, we 



68 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

must recognize their inefficacy and their futility. 
If Roosevelt's motives were pure and noble; 
if he really had at heart the -happiness of the 
people and the welfare and glory of his country; 
if he was, indeed, a patriot who sought to save 
his country and to rescue his countrymen, to 
emancipate them from their political bondage, 
then we should hail him as a deliverer and crown 
him with laurels. No one but the Searcher of All 
Hearts can determine the motives of men. And 
no human being knows the secrets hidden in the 
heart of Roosevelt, the springs of action that 
animate him and determine his conduct. It is 
claimed by Watterson that he would Diazify the 
country. But so many of Marse Henry's predic- 
tions have failed that we are inclined to believe 
him a false prophet. When Roosevelt was a can- 
didate for President in 1904 he warned his coun- 
trymen against the imperial designs of the Rough 
Rider. He pictured the appalling calamities that 
would inevitably befall the country if Roosevelt 
was elected President. His exuberant imagina- 
tion conjured up woes numerous and dire, abso- 
lutism, Caesarism, tyranny, with all the trappings 
and glitter of imperial power. Roosevelt was 
elected President. We still have no emperor and 
do not see any throne. All the dire predictions 
failed. There is no more reason to believe now 
than there was then that Roosevelt would make 
himself emperor. If that had been his purpose, 
when he was in complete control of the army and 
navy and supported by the Federal patronage 
and power, was the opportune time, the psycho- 
logical hour to throw oft the mask and to appear 
in his true character, a Caesar Augustus, a Napo- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 69 

leon riding roughshod over the liberties of his 
countrymen. 

No doubt Roosevelt is ambitious. But that is 
no crime. All men who have political aspirations 
are ambitious.- And it may be that the Rough 
Rider seeks laurels brighter than any that have 
yet adorned the brow of any American citizen. 
This, however, does not prove that he harbors 
sinister designs against his country. Roosevelt 
has not yet been reelected President. Therefore, 
to reelect him would not violate any precedent. 
To accord him honors equal to those bestowed 
on his predecessors who served two terms it 
would be necessary to elevate him to the Chief 
Magistracy again, even though it should give him 
a tenure of office longer than accorded any former 
President. And in his candidacy he may be seek- 
ing only a vindication of his public policies at the 
hands of his countrymen and an opportunity to 
effect the political reforms he advocates. Not- 
withstanding the hysterical ebullitions of Wat- 
terson *and his frantic efforts to alarm his 
countrymen against the third-term phantom, his 
vehement denunciation of imperialism should be 
dismissed as the ravings of an old man in his 
dotage, shadowy and unreal as a tale of the Ara- 
bian Knights. To picture a man as of insatiable 
ambition, with imperial aspirations, who when 
flushed with an overwhelming triumph and ac- 
claimed a patriot by his countrymen by a plu- 
rality of over 2,500,000 votes, yet who, like 
Cincinnatus and Washington, voluntarily relin- 
quished the presidency and retired to private 
life, is too extravagant to merit the consideration 
of any but dreamers. Watterson's views are so 



70 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

kaleidoscopic that they change with the seasons, 
with his caprices and whims, and to suit political 
exigencies. One year he is the Panegyrist of 
Roosevelt, wanting to make him the head of a 
High Conrt of Political Arbitration; the next 
year he denounces him, depicting as the very in- 
carnation of absolutism, of vaulting ambition that 
would level every constitutional barrier and pro- 
claim him Caesar Augustus, Emperor of the West. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 71 



CHAPTER VII. 

Some Salient Arguments as to the Incapacity 
of the People fok Self-Government as 
Seen in the Constitution of the Two 
Great Political Parties. — The Paucity of 
the Independents. 

One salient argument against the capacity of 
the people for self-government is fonnd in the 
constitution of the two great political parties. 
We have already shown that the great masses of 
both parties almost invariably adhere to them, 
as shown in every political contest. It is very 
seldom, indeed, that any considerable number of 
them bolt. The balance of power is sometimes 
held by a few independent voters, who turn the 
political scales either way as dictated by their 
judgment, or their whims. The great masses of 
the people, though honest, do not exercise intelli- 
gence or discrimination in voting. We have al- 
ready alluded to their political prejudices. Their 
political views and predilections are not based 
on conclusions derived from reasoning. Very 
few of them can give you satisfactory reasons for 
their political faith. The truth is that they in- 
herit their politics as they do their religion. They 
vote as their fathers and their grandfathers 
voted. Hardly one in ten deviates from this al- 
most immutable law. Millions of votes are cast 



72 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

by men who long since have joined the silent 
majority. At every national election millions of 
spirits pour forth from our necropolises to par- 
ticipate in the choice of a Chief Magistrate. A 
great bard has said, "how so soon we are forgot 
when we are gone." True, but the influence of 
many of us is a living, vital factor for generations 
after we have "shuffled off this mortal coil." 

We should all venerate our ancestors and filial 
devotion is due our fathers. But the shades of 
our forefathers and sentimental folly should not 
influence our political conduct. They were wise 
in their own day and generation. We should, 
however, resent and repudiate any attempt on 
their part to determine the grave and important 
political problems of to-day. 

Yet millions will go to the polls and vote the 
way their fathers and their grandfathers did. 
Though they have discarded the fashions of their 
ancestors, though the stage-coach is a relic, ana 
they utilize the automobile, yet they will cling 
with stupid and fanatical devotion to the political 
heresies of their fathers. 

Again, the incapacity of the people for self- 
government is demonstrated by the fact that mil- 
lions of electors are influenced in their political 
views by their environments. They are influ- 
enced by their associations, by leaders, by corrupt 
political demagogues and "bosses," who use them 
to promote their own base and selfish interests, 
as already shown. 

Moreover, popular government is a failure be- 
cause most people, even if they had the capacity to 
master political problems, have not the leisure to 
equip and prepare themselves for the duties of 
citizenship. And the more capable they are the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 73 

less time have they to devote to politics ; because, 
if they are men of extraordinary capacity, they 
follow some lucrative profession, or engage in 
business from which accrue to them greater prof- 
its than can be derived from the perquisites and 
emoluments of office. Therefore, the most of 
their time engrossed by business affairs or pro- 
fessional duties, they neglect politics and their 
country is deprived of their wisdom and counsels 
and of brilliant talents that would otherwise 
adorn the Senate. 

As to the great masses of the people, notwith- 
standing the boast and claims of Republican poli- 
ticians of the great prosperity of the country and 
the contented and happy condition of the Amer- 
ican workingmen, they must toil to keep body and 
soul together and have little time to prepare 
themselves for the duties of citizenship ; certainly 
not enough to qualify them for the grave respon- 
sibilities of the electorate. It is true we have a 
common school system in every State. It is 
claimed that its purpose is to prepare the younger 
generation for the duties of citizenship. Far be 
it from me to oppose or reprobate our noble pub- 
lic school system, one of the glories of the Amer- 
ican nation, an institution that has greatly 
ameliorated the condition of the people and 
molded many noble characters among men and 
women. But no public school education can pre- 
pare anyone for citizenship; nay, even a univer- 
sity education fails to measure up to its 
requirements. Teaching people to read, write 
and cipher, or higher mathematics, the ancient 
languages, the sciences, rhetoric and belles lettres 
will not capacitate them for the proper exercise 



74 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

of citizenship. For government itself is an ab- 
struse and intricate science, which requires both 
great natural ability and many years of arduous 
study to master it. Yet, our system of govern- 
ment, founded on an absurdity, reverses the nat- 
ural order of the great national pyramid by 
setting it on its apex. For the people are made 
the fountain of all power. All the political wis- 
dom of the country is lodged in 25,000,000 of 
mostly ignorant voters. For as a body on all the 
great and perplexing political problems of the 
day they are intensely ignorant. Wisdom must 
sit at the feet of ignorance and be instructed. 
The professor must abdicate his chair and listen 
to the lectures of his students. Experience must 
yield to inexperience; capacity must bow to in- 
capacity; genius must make obeisance to medi- 
ocrity ; and finally, as the crowning shame of the 
whole stupid and miserable system, all must pros- 
trate themselves before the great Mogul Plutoc- 
racy. It is as difficult a feat to secure a good 
government under such a system as to poise a 
pyramid on its apex. 

There is nothing more opposed to reason and 
common sense than the theory that all political 
power should emanate from the people, the great 
masses of whom in our own country, and in all 
other countries, even where they are the most 
enlightened, are unfit for the duties of citizenship. 
It is diametrically opposed to all scientific prin- 
ciples, discredited by experience in every age of 
the world and in our own country, as shown in 
these pages, has proved a miserable failure. 

What else could be expected from a system of 
government founded and operated on principles 
so repugnant to every rational idea of govern- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 75 

ment? Business principles should be applied to 
the conduct and administration of every govern- 
ment. Wise and salutary laws should be enacted, 
laws initiated, framed and placed on the statute 
books, not on the recommendation of the ignorant 
multitude, but by men of high character and 
standing, men of great natural endowments and 
brilliant talents, of extensive erudition, well 
versed in the Constitution and laws and convers- 
ant with the needs of the people. Government by 
the people has been weighed in the balance and 
found wanting. 

To apply to the people to correct the many 
evils that afflict our government is just as un- 
scientific and unreasonable as for a man afflicted 
with a dangerous disease to call in the multitude 
to diagnose his case and to apply the proper 
remedy. The troubles of the people are the re- 
sult of the diseases of the body politic, which is 
afflicted with many maladies. Some of these are 
of long standing and have become chronic and, 
to carry out the simile, they require all the skill 
of the greatest specialists to cure them. Is it any 
wonder, then, that they have so long and obdu- 
rately resisted all the quack nostrums adminis- 
tered by the ignorant and unskilled multitude! 
The only wonder is that the patient has not long 
since died. 

Free silver was once proposed as a panacea 
for all our political ills, but being rejected the 
country took the gold cure, though the patient is 
not yet convalescent. All intelligent people now 
recognize that free silver would be ineffective to 
restore the patient's health and that gold is at 
the base of a sound circulation of the monetary 
system. 



76 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

But the body politic is suffering with other 
and most malignant diseases, which will not yield 
to the empiric remedies that have been applied. 
One of the greatest disorders that afflict our 
country is the concentration of vast wealth in the 
hands of a few men. Though all wealth is the 
fruit of labor, yet the toiling masses, who produce 
it by the sweat of their brows, do not enjoy it. 
They are the victims of predatory wealth and 
receive but a small pittance of their hard earn- 
ings. It goes to enrich the corporations and 
trusts, that with impunity rob and plunder the 
American people. These infamous highwaymen 
and buccaneers, these monsters of iniquity "fare 
sumptuously every day," while Lazarus, the poor 
man, must beg. 

It is said that when Rome fell 119 families 
owned practically all the wealth of the country. 
One hundred families own most of the wealth of 
the United States. The Standard Oil Company 
by some is reputed to own 53 per cent, of t it,, 
though this seems hyperbolical and incredible. 
It does not, however, affect our argument, for it 
is beyond all doubt or cavil true that the great 
bulk of all the wealth of the entire country is 
possessed by a very few. Rockefeller alone is 
worth at least $600,000,000, millions created by 
labor. When it is remembered that the entire 
wealth of the United States is computed to be 
about $120,000,000,000, Rockefeller's enormous 
fortune is astounding. But the great Oil Magnate 
did not earn it. Though labor produced all of it, 
yet but an insignificant part of it has it received. 
Under the benign influence of our republican form 
of government a few have been enabled to absorb 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 77 

most of the wealth of the country. The laws have 
furnished no restraint to the rapacity of the 
predatory interests. For they resort to every 
legal technicality and subterfuge to evade them, 
and the courts are often their pliant tools. In 
fact to a great extent they own Congress, the 
legislatures and many of the courts, as we have 
previously observed. 

Are the people, then, capable of self-govern- 
ment when they can not and do not govern them- 
selves, but are ruled by corporations and trusts 1 
If they can govern themselves, why is it they fail 
to do so? If they can, but will not, then they 
are not worthy to be trusted with power. Though 
political warfare has been waged on the trusts 
for years, yet it has been ineffective; that is to 
say the people in this land of ' ' the free and home 
of the brave" have not been able to throw off 
the tyrannical yoke of the monopolies and trusts 
that has oppressed them so long and so griev- 
ously. Politicians of both great political parties 
have been profuse in their promises of relief to 
the people from the intolerable burdens heaped 
upon them, but they were only the fulminations 
of political campaign thunder to delude the credu- 
lous and unwary multitude. Democratic politi- 
cians who invoke the imprecations of Heaven on 
the ungodly trusts we frequently find pecuniarily 
interested in them, and their professions of de- 
votion to the cause of the people are hypocrit- 
ical cant and "bunkum." 

Popular government, party government — for 
ours is a party government — is a failure because 
it has not achieved the beneficent purposes it was 
designed to accomplish; it has not secured "gov- 



78 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

ernment of the people, by the people, for the 
people ; ' ' it has not secured for us those blessings 
and privileges intended to be accorded the people 
by the Constitution. Henry Watterson, the bril- 
liant journalist and editor of the Courier- Journal, 
sustains us in this view. He suggests that a high 
court of political arbitration be established. We 
quote him verbatim describing his proposed high 
court: "A body of independents taken for spe- 
cial service from each of the two parties, a middle 
court of arbitration, thoroughly organized and 
permanent." Then he further suggests refusal 
to seek or accept office as requisite to member- 
ship, "the political convictions and rights of the 
members of the court to be conceded, the aims 
upright, the spirit disinterested and a brother- 
hood presided over by our wandering Ulysses," 
the peerless Roosevelt. 

This proposal is a tacit and virtual admission 
of the failure of our popular government. Wat- 
terson admits that party government has failed 
and that all third party movements are abortions. 
He in effect asserts that both the old parties are 
corrupt and that the only salvation for our free 
institutions lies in the establishment of a virtuous 
and upright tribunal headed by Roosevelt, a trib- 
unal of sufficient strength to hold the balance of 
power and to decide between the two great polit- 
ical parties. 

Now, this theory of Watterson 's is perfectly 
constitutional ; but, if it should become operative, 
all power would be vested in a comparatively 
few men. For if this high court was so powerful 
that by throwing its strength of thousands, or 
even a million, of votes to either of the two par- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 79 

ties it could secure the triumph of the party it 
preferred and decide the fate of important polit- 
ical measures, then in all political affairs it would 
be omnipotent: in other words, no party could 
win without its approval; no political measures 
could be sustained, no laws passed without its 
deliberate sanction; it would, indeed, be sole ar- 
biter of the political destinies of the country. Its 
fiat would be law. From the stormy coast of 
Maine to the Golden Gate, where the setting sun 
paints the West with gorgeous hues ; from the 
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico it would be 
the sole and supreme arbiter in all political mat- 
ters. 

If this high court was so sacred; if it was so 
arbitrary and puissant ; if it possessed such lofty 
civic virtues and intellectual endowments and 
such patriotic spirits as to inspire the people to 
repose in it so much confidence as to intrust it 
with the absolute sovereignty of the country, why 
not make it in name supreme as well as in fact? 
Why have the intervention of the two great polit- 
ical parties? Political parties would be super- 
fluous and should be abolished. 

If this high court should be endowed with so 
much wisdom and virtue that, as Watterson con- 
tends, the perpetuity of our free institutions de- 
pend on it: that it is the very palladium of our 
liberties, surely such a court should be eminently 
qualified to formulate as well as to approve laws 
proposed by the great political parties. Indeed, 
a court of such a character would be much better 
qualified to formulate great policies of govern- 
ment than the corrupt old parties, which serve 
only the interests. Most politicians, pandering 



80 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

to the prejudices and caprices of the ignorant 
multitude, advocate any policy that will appeal to 
the fancy and favor of the people. Many of them 
are vacillating in their political views, trimming 
their sails to suit any popular breeze that will 
waft them into the haven their ambition covets. 
Political parties, too, are unstable in their prin- 
ciples, because they are the reflex of their con- 
stituents, seeking to voice public opinion in 
promulgating platforms that will receive the sup- 
port of the people. In 1896 the Republican party 
denounced the principles of Bryan and the Demo- 
cratic party as revolutionary, socialistic and an- 
archistic. But in 1904 the same party that had 
reprobated them in 1896 approved most of them 
and incorporated them into its national platform. 
What was to be reprobated and abhorred eight 
years previously was now highly commended and 
inserted as an essential feature of the Republican 
platform. Bryan's lightning was stolen, because 
it had struck the Republican party as being popu- 
lar ; and when any policy, however odious it may 
have once seemed, meets the approval of the 
people, then in the imagination of the politicians 
its most hideous features instantly vanish as by 
magic and it is transformed into a comely object 
worthy their veneration and homage. 

The Democratic party is even more inconsist- 
ent that its adversary. It is, as we have before 
observed, incapable of originating or molding any 
great national policy. It is a party of negation 
and exploitation; a party of incapacity and 
tenacity — to hold office; a party of opposition 
and • indisposition — to serve the people— of ob- 
struction and destruction. It is kept together 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCKACY. 81 

only by the "cohesive power of public plunder." 
Its shibboleth is "to the victor belongs the spoils. " 

Its creed is greed — 

for public spoliation ; 
Its craft is graft; 

its inspiration, 

Any political thunder 
To enable it to plunder. 

In the light of all these startling facts, in view 
of the venality and corruption of the two great 
political parties, of their subserviency to selfish 
interests, their Punic faith and violated pledges 
to the people, it is obvious that a high court of 
political arbitration, as suggested by Watterson, 
would be an immeasureable improvement on the 
present system of government, that has utterly 
failed to secure the chief object of all just gov- 
ernments, the welfare and happiness of the 
people. 

Yet Mr. Watterson has been held up to ridi- 
cule and obloqivy for proposing this new system 
of beneficent government, which is pronounced 
a chimerical project. It would not, however, be a 
visionary scheme if the people were capable of 
self-government. And the very fact that its prac- 
ticability is disputed is a palpable, though tacit, 
admission of the failure of popular institutions. 
It is an admission that, though both the old par- 
ties are corrupt, a sufficient body of virtuous men 
can not be secured in all the country as an equili- 
brium to curb them and assure the people a 
beneficent government. 



82 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Roosevelt's New Nationalism and His Second 
Spectaculae Crusade against Predatory 
Wealth and Corruption. — Denounced by 
the Interests that Charge Him with Im- 
perial Aspirations, the Man on Horseback, 
— Delineation of His Character. — His 
Fame Secure. 

In 1910 the public journals of the country were 
full of Roosevelt and his New Nationalism. His 
spectacular career kept him more in the limelight 
than any other mortal. He more than any other 
man of the age seemed to embody the spirit of his 
New Nationalism. He himself explains this New 
Nationalism as only the purification and lustra- 
tion of our government, the cleansing of our 
Augean stables, the elimination from our free 
institutions of venality and graft and the exem- 
plification in public life of civic virtue and probity 
so essential to the perpetuity of our free institu- 
tions. 

Yet, while he proclaims no doctrines that 
should not meet the cordial approval of all good 
and patriotic citizens, he is bitterly assailed by 
the venal organs of the special interests and arch- 
enemies of the people, because he is the ardent 
foe of all grafters and spoliators. The most 
malignant invectives and calumnies were heaped 
on him as the great champion of civic righteous- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 83 

ness, the heroic defender of the people's rights 
and liberties. The infamous trusts and their 
servile tools insidiously assailed the people under 
the specious plea that they were the advocates of 
the Constitution and opposed to anarchy, though 
they themselves are the greatest anarchists in the 
world. Stealing the livery of Heaven to serve the 
devil in, they sought to beguile the people under 
the shallow and hypocritical pretense that they 
were the friends of law and order and constitu- 
tional privileges, posing as conservatives. In or- 
der to attract attention from their base, 
abominable and nefarious purposes, to conceal 
their infamous iniquities from the people, they 
raised the hue and cry of dictator. Roosevelt was 
depicted as a man on horseback, a Caesar, a Napo- 
leon, who would crush the liberties of the people 
beneath the heels of his steed. But no intelligent 
person should be deceived by the specter of dic- 
tator or emperor. 

Even if, however, all the dire predictions of the 
monopolists should be fulfilled, how could the con- 
dition of the people be any worse than it is? It is 
not one man on horseback, but a whole regiment of 
cavalry that runs rough-shod over them. We have 
not one dictator, but a thousand ; not one benevo- 
lent dictator, but a thousand milignant and cruel 
despots whose oppression has entailed woe on mil- 
lions of people. No ; it is not the man on horse- 
back that we should dread, but, rather the thou- 
sand men on the people 's backs, astride them like 
a colossus, crushing them to death under the mas- 
sive and ponderous weight of monopoly, that 
should excite our fears and indignation. It is not 
the man on horseback that should make us tremble, 
but, rather, the men who travel in luxuriously 



84 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

equipped private cars and automobiles, who spend 
their summers at Newport or in Europe, lavish- 
ing the money wrung from the perspiring brawn 
and brow of American labor, suffering from the 
onerous burdens of monopoly — these should excite 
in our breasts the gravest apprehensions. Roose- 
velt, the man on horseback, the dictator, should 
much be preferred to the present regime, when 
the trusts in the heyday of their glory, in their 
bacchanalian revelry of political debauchery, 
bribe legislators, congressmen and senators and 
shape the legislation of the country, and when the 
decrees of the trusts are its laws. 

If we are not mistaken in the character of 
Roosevelt, with him as dictator, we should get a 
square deal. We should have at the head of the 
government a man who would formulate, or have 
enacted into statutes, only wise and beneficent 
iaws. A benevolent chief magistrate, he would 
pursue only those wise and patriotic policies that 
would subserve the interests of the people and 
redound to the happiness and glory of his coun- 
try. Vice and venality would then have no place 
in our political economy. Woe then to the grafter 
and the time-serving, bribe-taking and bribe-giv- 
ing politician. Roosevelt would inflict on him 
speedy and condign punishment. No coat of white 
wash would save him from his righteous wrath. 
No monopolistic influence, no servile judges, no 
corrupt jurors could avert his inevitable fate. 
Roosevelt as dictator would strike terror into the 
hearts of only the base and iniquitous, but would 
inspire with courage and hope the breasts of all 
good and patriotic citizens. No legitimate busi- 
ness or enterprise need have any fear, but all the 
monopolies and abuses of the present regime 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 85 

would be driven into exile. Roosevelt might be 
dictator, but lie would dictate laws in the interest 
of the great common people, and not serve the 
classes at the expense of the masses ; whereas now 
a thousand dictators, the representatives of the in- 
terests, issue their decree and promulgate only 
those laws that pillage the people and inure to 
their own benefit, exhausting the substance of the 
people and swelling their own already vast and 
fabulous fortunes. 

A great British statesman asserted that tyr- 
anny in no one was so formidable as when exer- 
cised by a number of tyrants. Therefore, Roose- 
velt as dictator should much be preferred to the 
present plutocratic oligarchy. 

In order to give the reader a just estimate of 
the character of Roosevelt, we present a brief crit- 
ical sketch of his career. To many of his country- 
men the encomium the author has paid Roosevelt 
may seem too laudatory and fulsome ; to many 
others the Rough Rider appears a dangerous 
character, who deserves only the condemnation 
and execration of his countrymen. Another great 
body of citizens love him for the enemies he has 
made. We do not claim that Roosevelt is without 
fault or blemish. To no mortal born of woman 
can we ascribe perfection. That he has made some 
mistakes, perhaps some serious mistakes, no one 
can doubt. But his friends and admirers will con- 
tend that they were all errors of the mind and not 
of the heart. The author desires only to be just 
to him and truthfully and faithfully to delineate 
his character. 

It is useless to try to disguise the fact that 
Roosevelt's career exhibits some examples of 
flagrant inconsistency, some conspicuous incon- 



86 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

gruities, that seem to belie his professions of pa- 
triotic devotion to his country; acts not in har- 
mony with the tenor of his administration or with 
his great national achievements. His shielding 
of his friend Paul Morton, a member of his cab- 
inet, found guilty, according to the press, of a vio- 
lation of the Sherman anti-trust law, and his re- 
fusal to dine with Lorimer, though he sat at the 
same table with Boss Cox, were examples of gross 
inconsistency. 

In 1904 Judge Parker declared that Harriman 
had made a vast contribution to the Eepublican 
campaign fund, which at the time was vehemently 
denied by Roosevelt. Not only, according to 
Democratic authority, have subsequent investi- 
gations revealed the truth of the charge, but, 
also some interesting and luminous correspond- 
ence between Roosevelt and Harriman has 
been brought to light. Roosevelt's assertion in 
this correspondence that they were "both practi- 
cal men" seemed to imply something shady in 
their transactions, something clandestine, and that 
it was prudent to keep a profound secret. The 
Rough Rider, who clamored so vociferously for a 
law requiring publicity of all campaign contribu- 
tions, in 1904, when he again aspired for the pres- 
idency did not then proclaim from the house-tops 
the virtues of publicity, but to gratify his ambition 
was guilty of deception and duplicity, publicly 
condemning vast political campaign contributions, 
while he himself, it is charged, at the same time, 
posing as the great exemplar and champion of 
civic virtue, secretly accepts from Harriman, the 
great railroad magnate, a king's ransom as a con- 
tribution to the Republican campaign fund. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 87 

• In; extenuation of Roosevelt's conduct on this 
occasion, while the enormous contribution is not 
denied, it is claimed that it was not given to the 
Republican national campaign fund, but to the Re- 
publican campaign fund of the Empire State, to 
secure the election of Higgins, the Republican 
candidate for governor. But, to whichever fund 
it was devoted, the principle remains the same, 
and hardly a hair-splitting difference in political 
ethics can be detected. For it was used to help 
the Republican party, and Roosevelt knew that 
in helping Higgins to carry the Empire State, he 
was promoting his own political fortunes; since, 
as a rule, the presidential electors and State can- 
didates poll nearly the same number of votes. 
Though it is true that Roosevelt ran many thou- 
sand votes ahead of the State ticket, it was not a 
typical example, but a phenomenal victory he won. 
But, even granting that Roosevelt knew that the 
contribution would help only Higgins, still that 
could hardly palliate the wrong. 

Again, in 1907, Roosevelt sanctioned the absorp- 
tion of the Tenessee Coal and Iron Company by 
the United States Steel Corporation. He claimed 
that he had no authority to prevent it. Yet, in 
1911, under the administration of Taft, whom 
Roosevelt had designated as his successor, legal 
proceedings were instituted to dissolve this very 
trust, to which he had given a free hand and 
plenary powers to absorb all its competitors. The 
Steel Trust, in the eyes of Roosevelt, was one of 
the benevolent trusts whose right to despoil the 
people was sacred and inviolable. 

This transaction will certainly not constitute 
one of the jewels in Roosevelt's crown. For, what- 



88 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

ever construction may be pnt on his conduct, he is 
placed in an embarrassing and unenviable posi- 
tion. He is in a serious dilemma and cannot es- 
cape unscotched from either horn of it. For, if we 
accept his apology that he was constrained to al- 
low the merger in order to avert a panic, either he 
must be regarded as the easy dupe of Frick and 
Gary, their innocent, guileless and unsophisti- 
cated victim, or else the greatest demagogue and 
political fakir of the twentieth century. If his 
conduct be viewed in the former light, then it must 
detract much from the wisdom and sagacity gen- 
erally attributed to him; if viewed in the latter 
light, he is shorn of much of his political prestige 
and glory. 

The United States Steel Corporation did not, 
however, absorb a rival to prevent a panic. The 
interests of the Steel Trust and Wall Street are 
identical. And it is a notorious fact, and so 
charged by Roosevelt himself, that Wall Street, 
so far from wanting to avert a panic, deliberately 
produced the panic of 1908. 

Again, when Hayward and Moyer were on trial 
for their lives, charged with murder, this same 
Roosevelt, while President of the United States, 
who seemed to arrogate to himself autocratic 
powers, constituting himself Congress and the ju- 
diciary, as well as executioner, with all the tre- 
mendous power of the Chief Executive of the 
nation, tried to influence public sentiment and to 
create prejudice against the accused, thus depriv- 
ing them to that extent of the constitutional right 
of a fair trial before a jury of the vicinage. 

To keep himself in the calcium light, to cater to 
public sentiment and to curry popular favor, 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 89 

Roosevelt, lost to all sense of propriety, did not 
hesitate to do things the most fantastic and sen- 
sational. He could give sage advice as to the 
rearing of families and the rearing of nations and 
colonies. In a public lecture at Oxford, England, 
having no regard for the proprieties or amenities 
of the occasion, he sharply criticised Great Brit- 
ain for being too lenient in her policy towards her 
suzerainty Egypt, urging her not to spare the 
iron rod and recommending more drastic meas- 
ures in dealing with the natives, who aspired to 
independence. This was certainly an unwarranted 
interference with the domestic affairs of England. 
And, while sensible people on both sides of the 
Atlantic were astounded at the sentiments uttered, 
yet they met the hearty applause of the vulgar 
herd. 

We have endeavored to present faithfully to the 
reader the virtues and failings of Roosevelt. Fair 
and impartial history alone can do justice to any 
character. In the storms of passion and preju- 
dice the scales of justice are not steady and 
nicely discriminating, and unbiased judgment can- 
not assert itself in vindication of the truth. It is 
an undoubted fact that men look more on the dark 
side than on the bright side of things. 

•'The evil that men do lives after them;" 
The good oft is interred with their bones. 

Evil indelibly impresses itself on our minds ; the 
good is soon forgotten. Fair and impartial history 
will have to determine, if possible, whether Roose- 
velt was a dissembler and impostor, an Augustus 
Caesar, who would have leveled every constitution- 
al barrier, if given power, or whether he would 



90 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

have been a Washington or a Lincoln. Bnt what- 
ever shall be the verdict of unbiased history, that 
his administration signalized itself by some noble 
and remarkable achievements no one can doubt. 
And, if he has showed indiscretion and blundered 
in some things, we still should give him credit for 
what he did do. For the pure food law alone he 
deserves an honorable niche. A heroic and spec- 
tacular figure, he is pre-eminent among the great 
men of his time, an international character of co- 
lossal proportions, a man among men and one of 
the few mortals "born not to die." 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 91 



CHAPTER IX 

A Review of the General Elections of 1910 — 
Corruption Triumph in the Empire State 
and Other States — Generally Regarded a 
Rebuke to the Republican Administration. 
— The Moral Taught.. 

The general election of November, 1910, to a 
great extent confirmed the opinions on different 
political questions that we have already expressed. 
The corrupt and unholy alliance of Wall Street 
and Tammany Hall defeated Stimson for gov- 
ernor of New York, and Murphy is the enthroned 
boss of the Empire State. Stimson had proved 
himself too energetic and vigorous in the prosecu- 
tion of thieves and grafters and thus incurred the 
enmity of the predatory interests and the corrupt 
elements and, in spite of the influence of Roosevelt, 
went down in defeat. It was a victory of the cor- 
rupt bosses and the interests over the people and 
shows how impotent thej are to emancipate them- 
selves from their domination. It is true that the 
general verdict throughout the country was re- 
garded by the Democratic party as a just rebuke 
to the Republican party for what the former 
charged was a violation of its solemn pledge to 
reduce the tariff. But in New York the campaign 
was waged on a higher plane. Questions more im- 
portant than the tariff were involved, and in the 



92 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Empire State it was a verdict against civic virtue 
and righteousness, a declaration that Wall Street, 
Tammany Hall, the corrupt bosses and the inter- 
ests should continue to despoil the people. 

As to Ohio, good people should have no tears 
io shed for the defeat of the Cox Machine and 
the downfall of the cause advocated by the un- 
speakable Dick and Foraker, of Standard Oil in- 
famy. Yet, no doubt, the whisky interests to a 
great extent contributed to the result. The Dem- 
ocratic party has its corrupt political bosses in 
Ohio as in other States and, if given power r 
in due time a Bernard or some other boss 
will materialize as the Great Mogul of the 
Unterrified. The record of the Democratic 
party in that State has been a very unsavory one ; 
at least, the people have thought so; for seldom 
have they re-elected a Democratic governor. John 
Sherman once said of a Democratic legislature of 
that State that none of its Democratic members 
could see any virtue in a bill, unless it was a five- 
dollar bill. And he publicly charged that Calvin 
S. Brice, the Democratic millionaire United States 
Senator had bought his seat with money a la Lor- 
imer. 

In Indiana the defeat of Beveridge was to be 
deplored. He had fought valiantly for the redemp- 
tion of the Eepublican party's pledges. A man 
of commanding ability and eloquence, he reflected 
honor on his State. But the unholy alliance of 
the corrupt bosses and the liquor interests encom- 
passed his defeat and Kern, the protege of Boss 
Taggart, the proprietor of the French Lick 
Springs Gambling Hell, was awarded the sena- 
torial toga. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 93 

The result of the general elections afforded no 
relief to the plundered and despoiled people. 
Wherever bosses have been defeated they will be 
replaced with other bosses, just as unprincipled 
and corrupt. The special interests will still rob 
the people and the bosses exact from them their 
accustomed toll. It is in vain that the people look 
to the rum-ridden, whisky-soaked, corrupt and 
unprincipled Democratic party for an alleviation 
of their intolerable burdens. No prophecy is 
surer of fulfillment than that the confidence re- 
posed in it for the time will never be justified. 

The prevailing high prices more than anything 
else induced, or seduced, the people to withdraw 
their confidence from the Republican party. The 
high cost of living furnished the Democrats a 
powerful and effective weapon with which to wage 
war on their political adversaries, and they were 
not dilatory in availing themselves of the use of 
it. It was not a mere sentiment, but a stern and 
solemn reality that confronted the people. Prices 
had risen to so high a pitch and without any 
corresponding increase of wages that it was ut- 
terly impossible for the average workingman to 
live decently. So, the Democratic charge appealed 
with strong force to thousands who suffered 
the onerous burdens of exorbitant prices, and in 
assailing this citadel of the enemy the Democratic 
party struck a most vulnerable point. 

Yet, the duplicity of the Democratic party is 
clearly discerned in putting to its political oppon- 
ents the sole cause of the great advance in prices ; 
for it should be remembered that that advance 
was comparatively recent and, as the tariff was 
not increased, but on many things that have ad- 



94 DELUSIONS OP DEMOCRACY. 

vanced it was actually decreased, it is evident that 
Mr. Tariff has been calumniated. The phenom- 
enal rise of prices was not confined to this coun- 
try, but embraced the whole of Europe, free-trade 
England included, thus showing that other ele- 
ments, too, entered into the cost of living. Natural 
causes to a great extent were factors in it. But 
truth is not one of the shining virtues of politi- 
cians. Talleyrand said that language was invented 
to conceal thought. Politicians are adepts in their 
verbosity, in the use of ornate language and the 
marshaling of beautiful phrases, cunningly and 
adroitly weaving their web of deceit to ensnare the 
ignorant, the credulous and the unsuspecting. 
Very often, when they do not falsify, they tell only 
a half truth which is sometimes the biggest lie in 
the world. 

The fact that the Democratic politicians con- 
vinced the people that the high cost of living was 
due solely to the tariff, but serves again to prove 
the incapacity of the great masses for self-gov- 
ernment. It is preposterous to claim that most of 
the electors, many of whom are illiterates and 
many more near-illiterates, are competent to pass 
intelligent judgment on the tariff. The truth is 
they know nothing about it. Yet, under our 
archaic and absurd system of government, theo- 
retically at least, the people determine the tariff 
as well as ali our other political policies. Take 
the congressional campaign of 1910 for example. 
The Republican politicians claimed there had been 
a reduction of the tariff; the Democratic politi- 
cians asserted there had been no reduction of it at 
all, but that it had actually been increased. Now, 
when statesmen differ as to the vital facts of a 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 95 

great measure; when the creators do not know 
their own creature ; when the father and the God- 
father do not know their own son; when the Re- 
publicans claim that it was a paragon of beauty 
just like its mother, and when the Democrats claim 
that it was a hideous monster, the offspring of the 
harlot trusts, how in the world are the people to 
determine the question? The electors themselves, 
though intensely ignorant, look in vain to the poli- 
ticians or to the parties to enlighten tliem. Fig- 
ures are juggled with, twisted and distorted into 
every conceivable shape to suit partisan purposes 
and achieve partisan success. The politicians are 
the gamblers, the people the dice, and the stake, 
public offices and emoluments. 

One of three things is certain, the tariff was 
reduced, increased, or remained the same. Why 
the disingenuous and artful deception of the peo- 
ple? Our statesmen ought to know, and knowing, 
if they were honest men and not time-serving poli- 
ticians, they would frankly unbosom themselves to 
their countrymen on this great question. 

The Democrats declare the tariff was increased 
1.17 per cent. Well, according to their own confes- 
sion, it was but slightly raised. So, they virtually 
admit that the recent high prices were not due to 
the tariff; because those prices were not slight in- 
creases, but were abnormal and exorbitant, ap- 
proaching war time prices. On the other hand, 
the Republicans profess to have made a fair re- 
duction of the tariff. To ascertain the truth, fol- 
lowing the golden mean and disregarding the ex- 
travagant claims of both parties, we compromise 
those claims. Applying this test, we find there 
was an insignificant reduction of the tariff. For, 



96 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

if with all their juggling with the tariff figures, 
the Democrats could show only 1.17 per cent, in- 
crease, it is fair to assume there was no increase 
at all, but rather a decrease. The people, however, 
as Democrats aver, had expected a decided and 
substantial reduction of the tariff, and the Repub- 
lician party, in not redeeming its solemn pledge, is 
denounced by them as guilty of political perfidy. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 97 



CHAPTER X. 

Opportunism op the Two Gkeat Political Par- 
ties — Flagrant Inconsistencies of the Dem- 
ocratic Party — The Prohibition Question — 
Criticism of Henry Watterson. 

The history of the two great political parties, 
as recorded in this volume, demonstrates that they 
are parties of opportunism; that they adopt any 
issue they think will appeal most effectively to the 
imagination and favor of the electors and secure 
their suffrages. Each recurring election but 
serves to emphasize this monumental fact. To il- 
lustrate, take the general elections of 1910. In 
New York State for partisan purposes the Demo- 
cratic party formed a disgraceful alliance with 
Wall Street, all the stock gamblers, Tammany 
Hall, the political crooks and the race track gamb- 
lers. In New Jersey the same party supported 
for Governor Woodrow Wilson, who stood for 
principles diametrically opposed to those prin- 
ciples advocated by the Democratic party in 
the Empire State. Wilson championed principles 
almost identically the same as those advocated by 
Roosevelt. In New York the Democratic party 
cast its fortunes with the corrupt interests, be- 
cause those interests served its partisan purposes ; 
it was the way to political preferment; in New 
Jersey it took opposite ground, because in that 



98 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

State the road to success happened to be the 
straight and narrow way. 

What must be thought of a party whose prin- 
ciples are so weak and flexible that they bend to 
every political breeze whether laden with aroma 
or malaria, provided only it is the breath of 
political life? Yet, this policy is only in keeping 
with the history of the Democratic party. The 
only thing in which it has been consistent is in its 
inconsistency. It is willing to advocate 

Anything that does not sting, 
Anything to help the ring. 

It once favored national expansion ; it now wants 
national contraction. It was once the champion of 
hard money ; in recent years it has favored green- 
backs and free silver. It nominated Horace 
Greely, an abolitionist, for president. It named 
Parker, a gold advocate, to run on a free silver 
platform. It nominates corporation attorneys, 
railroad receivers and trust directors to stand on 
anti-corporation and anti-trust platforms. It 
declares for one thing one year, and when it suits 
its purposes, it repudiates it the next year. It is 
all things to all men, yet nothing to any. If there 
is any new "isni" it thinks will strike the fancy of 
the electors it adopts it, and it immediately be- 
comes one of the ancient and cardinal principles 
of the Democratic party. If there is any principle 
of vital importance to the people, but which it 
deems it impolitic to advocate, it treats it with 
prudent silence ; it is no longer Democratic, but 
Dumocratic. 

Nothing more conclusively proves that both the 
old parties are opportunists than their treatment 
of the Prohibition question. There is no question 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 99 

in all the broad land of so vital importance as that 
of Prohibition. The infamous liquor traffic is the 
greatest curse that ever afflicted the human race, 
greater than all the pestilences and all the wars 
combined. It corrupts our politics and debauches 
and degrades our manhood and womanhood. It 
annually claims hecatombs of youthful victims de- 
voted to the demon of the liquor traffic. The lives 
of thousands of young men are ruined; all their 
hopes are blighted ; they are reduced to want and 
despair, and the slaves of their unbridled passion, 
the furious demon, drives them on and on till their 
graves yawn for the devoted victims. It fills our 
jails, penitentiaries, lunatic asylums, orphan 
homes and almshouses. It brings distress and sor- 
row to thousands of homes. Murders and crimes 
galore follow in the wake of this hideous monster 
and its infernal course is a trail of blood and 
tears. For 

Stills 

But blood and tears distill. 

It is not only a wanton and horrible waste of 
the blood and manhood of the country, but from a 
monetary point of view it is a dissipation of our 
treasures. The tariff sinks into insignificance in 
comparison with the great financial burden im- 
posed on the people by the liquor traffic. 

Yet, both the political parties in their national 
platforms are always silent on this great question, 
which is "proof as strong as holy writ" of their 
thralldom to the liquor interests. They are time 
servers, who, for fear of the antagonism of those 
interests, dare not assert their manhood and in- 
dependence in proclaiming the great doctrine of 
saving grace — uation-wide Prohibition. 



1 00 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Though Prohibition has made great progress 
in some of the States, yet it is evident that there 
can not be any satisfactory solution of the ques- 
tion without the intervention of the national gov- 
ernment. Though the sentiment of an over- 
whelming majority of the best people favor it, yet 
Congress, dominated by the liquor power, turns 
a deaf ear to all their appeals and the people, 
claiming to be free, tamely submit to the oppres- 
sion and arrogance of that damnable power. 

Henry Walters on, the brilliant editor of the 
Courier- Journal, but the mouthpiece of the liquor 
interests, vehemently condemns and assails the 
Prohibitionists, denouncing them as fanatics and 
enemies of the country. He reprobates their doc- 
trine as sumptuary legislation and deeply de- 
plores what he imagines is an effort to establish 
a union of church and state. Watterson, how- 
ever, is not consistent or logical in his views. He 
admits that local option is a good thing. If Pro- 
hibition when applied to a State or nation is 
sumptuary legislation, by what kind of logic does 
it cease to be sumptuary when applied to any 
particular county or community? Again, as to a 
union of church and State he deprecates, he might 
as well contend that laws against murder or any 
other crime would lead to such a union. Prohi- 
bition simply says to the liquor traffic: "You 
shall not debauch and ruin our youth; you shall 
not turn out murderers and other criminals to 
prey on the country; you shall not make widows 
and orphans and entail dire woe on millions of 
people to satisfy your avarice ; you shall not de- 
spoil our manhood and our womanhood.' ' 

Another specious plea of Marse Henry is that 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 101 

Prohibition makes men liars; that in order to 
procure liquor they will practice all kinds of de- 
ceit; that they will resort to every conceivable 
device to evade the Prohibition laws. The same 
logic will apply to any law. Murderers and 
thieves will lie to escape the penalty of their 
crimes. But shall we on that account repeal the 
laws against those crimes? 

Finally, he says Prohibition does not prohibit. 
It is true, it does not; nor does any other law. 
But that it does materially curtail the consump- 
tion of liquor is evident from the fact that all the 
liquor interests are opposed to it. If it does not 
hurt their business, why are they against it? 

Again, Marse Henry says no Prohibitionist 
can be a Democrat. But, in view of the unenvi- 
able record of that party, no Prohibitionist should 
want to be a Democrat. 

When we consider the disgraceful alliance of 
the Courier- Journal with the corrupt elements of 
Louisville, the editor of the Buckingham organ 
should not be taken seriously. Watterson's de- 
fense of all the election crimes perpetrated in 
Louisville for years in the interest of the Demo- 
cratic party, proves conclusively that he is no 
Democrat. He may be a Democrat, if the Demo- 
cratic party wants to own him, but in the true 
signification of the term he is no Democrat. For 
no one that deserves that name can uphold elec- 
tion frauds or be the apologist of the infamous 
liquor traffic. 



102 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Reasons foe the Failure of Democracy as 
Shown in Unequal Representation. — Why 
the People Do not Rule. — The Contradic- 
tory Character of the Constitution. — 
Great Britain More Democratic than the 
United States. — The Menace of Anarchy. 

Shakespeare says " there is nothing in a 
name." The terms Republican and Democrat as 
applied to the two great political parties are mis- 
nomers. For those parties no longer represent 
the people. If, indeed, they were worthy of those 
names, there would be no difference in them, as 
they are synonymous terms. And, even as it is 
and as it has been shown, they are almost identi- 
cally the same, as they do not serve the people, 
but their own selfish political purposes and ambi- 
tions. 

A United States senator in a public speech re- 
cently asked this question: " If the people rule, 
why do they not get what they want! " The au- 
thor of this book repeats the same question. The 
fact that the people do not get what they want is 
the strongest kind of evidence that they do not 
rule. It alone is a complete vindication of our 
claim of the delusions of democracy, or repub- 
licanism. 

Under our system of government it is utterly 
impossible for the people to rule, even if they 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 103 

were honest and capable. Though one or two 
votes may sometimes determine the fate of a bill 
in Congress, yet we have the State of Nevada 
with only about 80,000 inhabitants with two full- 
fledged United States senators, whereas New 
York with over 9,500,000 people must be satisfied 
with the same dual representation. Thus you 
see that in the upper house 80,000 people in one 
State have as much power as over 9,500,000 have 
in another State. Evidently in such a case the 
people are not sovereign. 

Again, it frequently happens that from the 
same State one senator is a Republican and the 
other a Democrat. It is certain that both at the 
same time can not truly represent it. The State 
is virtually deprived of representation; for the 
vote of one negatives that of the other. Democ- 
racy is plainly delusive here. 

In one article the Constitution reposes implicit 
faith in the people and clothes them with supreme 
power through the House of Representatives; 
but in another it repents of its overweening con- 
fidence and restricts and curbs that power by giv- 
ing the Senate equal authority as a check on the 
House, apprehensive that the impulsive repre- 
sentatives of the people may do something in- 
considerate and not in accord with the opinions 
of the more deliberate and august Senate. So the 
Constitution itself distrusts the people and has 
many misgivings as to their capacity for self- 
government, and even in theory they do not rule. 
It is a combination of democracy and statocracy. 

We know that it is contended that the States 
were given equal representation in the Senate to 
secure their equality. But it is a false political 



104 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

principle to equalize States when the disparity is 
so great; to make the paltry number of 80,000 
people the peers of nearly 10,000,000; to make 
the rotten borough of Nevada the equal of the 
great Empire State in the Senate. It strikes a 
fatal blow at Democracy and strips it of all its 
glamour. 

Again, even granting that the people in a con- 
gressional election declare for a change of policy, 
Very frequently they can not secure it, for an 
inimical and opposing Senate stands as a barrier 
to the legislation demanded by the people. And 
thus again it is shown that the people do not rule. 

Moreover, United States Senators are chosen 
for four years, three times as long as the Repre- 
sentatives. Though the people voice their senti- 
ments two different times in congressional 
elections and, though many of the Senators have 
been repudiated by the people, they still sit and 
misrepresent them till the expiration of their 
terms. For office holders never die, nor do they 
accept with resignation adverse political results. 
Yet we are solemnly informed that the people 
rule. 

Great Britain approaches nearer to true democ- 
racy than any other nation in the world. The 
British Parliament is more representative of the 
people than our Congress. When the prime min- 
ister champions any measure that is* not sanc- 
tioned by a majority of Parliament, then he must 
resign. Parliament is dissolved and an appeal — 
a referendum— is made to the people to ascertain 
their opinion and to determine whether they ap- 
prove the policies of the party in power, or those 
of the opposition. The real ruler of Great Britain 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 105 

is the prime minister. He is the real uncrowned 
king of Great Britain and Ireland and emperor of 
India. He is the true representative of the peo- 
ple, and when he speaks then speaks the sover- 
eign voice of Britain. When he can no longer 
command a majority of Parliament on any im- 
portant measure he may propose, he does not 
arrogate to himself the power of opposing the 
people's will, but presents his policies to them for 
their sanction or disapproval. He rules by au- 
thority of Parliament alone, and Parliament is 
kept in sympathy with the people and in har- 
mony with their views on all vital questions. And 
when those questions have been determined by 
the electors, it is the duty of the prime minister 
and the ministry to formulate them into laws in 
accordance with the expressed will of the people. 
The prime minister holds a commission from 
them which he is in honor bound to execute. 

Any intelligent and unbiased' person should 
clearly perceive how much nearer to true democ- 
racy the ministerial system of government is 
than our own. Here you have the referendum 
and the recall, a feature that is absent from ours. 
According to our Constitution, though the people 
by overwhelming majorities may proclaim their 
approval or disapproval of important measures, 
yet when it happens in the middle of a presiden- 
tial term with the president opposed to them, 
they must wait at least two years before their 
will can be put into effect, unless they can com- 
mand two-thirds majority in both Houses of Con- 
gress; and it seldom occurs that either of the 
two great political parties can muster so much 
political strength. Though the people have 



106 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

spoken in stentorian tones demanding the passage 
of important laws they deem of vital moment and 
essential to their interests and the repeal of other 
laws they regard as obnoxious and detrimental 
to those interests, yet there sits the President im- 
perturbable and immovable, not like the Prime 
Minister of England, the representative of the 
people, the very incarnation of their sovereignty, 
but the embodiment itself of fierce, determined 
and relentless opposition, ready to apply his veto 
to those measures that have been ratified by an 
overwhelming majority of the people. 

It may, however, be retorted that Great Britain 
has her hereditary House of Lords, correspond- 
ing to our Senate, and that, as its concurrence is 
necessary for the passage of all laws, it obstructs 
popular legislation. It is a sufficient answer to 
this to say that the House of Lords seldom runs 
counter to popular sentiment or opposes policies 
advocated by a majority of Parliament. The 
measures of the ministry generally receive the 
approval of that august body. Our Senate is 
much more obstructive to popular legislation 
than the British House of Lords. For, while it is 
not hereditary, yet it is composed mostly of mil- 
lionaires or very wealthy men, representatives of 
the corporations and trusts and the special inter- 
ests, as we have already observed in this volume. 
It is, indeed, an aristocratic body, an American 
House of Lords. It no more represents the peo- 
ple than the Roman Senate did in the time of 
Augustus Caesar. Too many of them, like the 
sycophants of that emperor, are the parasites of 
predatory riches, the fawning satellites of power 
and privilege. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 107 

Again, our House of Representatives does not 
faithfully reflect the views of the American peo- 
ple, because many of the States, if not all of 
them, are gerrymandered for partisan advantage. 
Of course, in some States it is worse than in oth- 
ers, but in the most outrageous cases it is almost 
tantamount to the total disfranchisement of one 
party. Districts are formed in every conceivable 
shape to suit the political despoilers. The party 
in power is generally reckless, imperious and 
domineering. Their political opponents have no 
rights, their country no laws that those political 
cut-throats are bound to respect. They may keep 
within the letter of the statute, but the "letter 
killeth, the spirit maketh alive/ ' The ways of 
those political freebooters and buccaneers are the 
highways, where they hold up American citizens 
and rob them of what we are taught to believe 
their most precious rights. Now, it does not re- 
quire a diagram to convince any intelligent and 
fair-minded person of the gross injustice and the 
enormous crimes inflicted on the people through 
this species of political brigandage. By gerry- 
mandering a party is sometimes deprived of 
two, five, or even more Representatives, and 
thus the will of the people 1 to that extent is sup- 
pressed. Some of the districts look like crazy 
quilts. Sometimes their forms are so grotesque 
and -hideous as almost to frighten anyone. They 
assume these fantastic shapes generally as the 
result of some great political cataclysm. 

Another species of political injustice is that in 
several Southern States the negro is practically 
disfranchised, the laws operating to deprive him 
of the elective franchise. Yet, in the apportion- 



108 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCKACY. 

ment of Bepresentatives, the negro counts as 
much as a white man. As in several of those 
States he equals or even outnumbers the whites, 
such States exercise a political power and influ- 
ence far beyond their voting strength. In many 
districts of the Northern States several times as 
many votes are cast as in some of the districts in 
the South. When such conditions as these pre- 
vail, it is preposterous for us to profess to be in 
the enjoyment of representative government. It 
is a palpable and flagrant injustice and discredits 
all our professions of democracy. One vote should 
not equal several votes elsewhere. Where polit- 
ical inequality thus exists, it is evident that just 
representative government does not prevail. 
Therefore, we have again shown that the people 
do not rule. 

It is just and right that the illiterate voters 
should be eliminated from the electorate. No 
true patriot will object to wise and beneficent 
laws that serve to purge and purify our politics. 
When done in the right spirit it is worthy of the 
highest praise. When, however, it is done purely 
for selfish and partisan purposes, it deserves the 
execration of all good and patriotic citizens. 
Where any great body of citizens is disf ranchised r 
the representation in Congress ought in all jus- 
tice to be proportionately reduced. The basing 
of representation on the number of people in the 
districts is a false political principle and not in 
accord with true democracy. The only fair test 
is the actual number of electors. No district 
should be any stronger politically than the num- 
ber of its citizens vested with the elective fran- 
chise and in the possession of the full enjoyment 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 109 

of it. A census of the electors should be taken 
and it alone should be made the basis of repre- 
sentation and qualification for the suffrage. Yet 
we, adhering to an obsolete and antiquated sys- 
tem, enumerate every human being, idiots, con- 
victs, women, children and all others excluded 
from the elective franchise, and, while they are 
not allowed to participate in the elections to the 
extent of voting, yet in the apportionment of 
Representatives, they count as much as the best 
qualified electors. 

As the electors are the reputed sovereigns of 
the Nation and, as those disqualified to vote in 
the different States and districts of the Union 
vary considerably in numbers, gross inequality 
in representation must prevail. It inevitably fol- 
lows that those States and districts that have the 
fewest electors and where so much illiteracy and 
crimes prevail have an equal voice in Congress 
with those that are the most enlightened and the 
most worthy. Yet we are gravely informed that 
the people rule. Thus even under the forms of 
the Constitution, when its letter is strictly ob- 
served and even granting for the sake of 
argument that the people are capable of self- 
government, it has been conclusively shown that 
they are denied the privilege of exercising the 
powers of sovereignty. For, if the people are 
sovereign, if they are the throne, then, in the 
language of Lord Chatham, " there is a power 
behind the throne greater than the throne. ' ' And, 
pray, of what use can it be for them to be merely 
theoretically and mythically clothed with supreme 
power, if that power is perpetually to be held in 
abeyance and thev never be allowed to exercise 



110 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

it? Ah, "the power behind the throne" has been 
repeatedly exhibited in this volume. When we 
add to the total incapacity of the people for self- 
government the gross corruptions, ballot box 
stuffing, the debauchery of the suffrage, brazen 
bribery, all the tricks and artifices of the wily, 
unprincipled and unscrupulous politicians and 
the domination of the infamous corporations and 
trusts, we clearly see that it is not solely one 
power, but a multitude of powers, behind the 
throne, myriads of demons and fiends incarnate, 
a thousand times a thousand devils, who have 
snatched the crown from the sovereign brow of 
the American people, have seized the scepter of 
power and wield it with a tyranny that would 
have made Nero, Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, or 
the most cruel tyrant whose brutal and crimson 
deeds are recorded in the world's solemn history, 
or the fictitious tyrants whose blood-curdling 
crimes are depicted in fiction, turn green with 
envy and weep and repent that they had been 
so lenient. 

Jesus charged the demon to come out of the 
man afflicted with the devil, and it obeyed, en- 
tering a herd of swine that rushed precipitately 
into the sea and were drowned. But here the 
demons charge the American people, and they 
rush headlong into the sea of high prices, a sea 
strewed with the wrecks of misery and despair, 
and they are drowned in the ocean of monopolis- 
tic oppression, spoliation, poverty and anguish — 
a living death ; for thousands suffer the pangs of 
hunger and want, while their oppressors enjoy 
the fat of the lamb ; revel in extravagant luxury, 
lavish thousands on dog and monkey entertain- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. Ill 

ments, thus showing their brutal instinct, not to 
speak of the millions squandered in other ambi- 
tious vanities, while hardby gaunt hunger stalks — t 
all this fabulous wealth cruelly wrung from the 
perspiring brawn and brow of American labor, 
ill-gotten and crimson gains, drawn from the 
bleeding pores of want and misery. 

A day of reckoning, however, will sometime 
come. Every dog has his day. And, as the mil- 
lionaires ' dogs are now having theirs, the people 
will eventually have their day. The hour of resti- 
tution is approaching that will sound the death 
knell of monopolistic oppression and arrogance. 
There must be a more equitable distribution of the 
wealth of the country. As Abraham Lincoln said, 
with reference to slavery, that the Union could 
not exist half slave and half free, so we say a 
fortiori that it cannot exist nine-tenths slave and 
one-tenth free. For, though we boast of our free 
institutions, we yet are slaves. Though Lincoln 
emancipated the black serfs sixty years ago, the 
people still bear the shackles of bondage and most 
of us are still serfs, driven by taskmasters and 
forced "to make brick without straw." We are 
thrilled with horror when we peruse the pages of 
ancient history that recite the brutalities and cru- 
elties of heartless tyrants; we are appalled at 
the sufferings and oppressions the ancient Rus- 
sian czars and boyars, with all the Muscovite 
nobility, endured at the hands of the Golden 
Horde, that held the Russians under humiliating- 
vassalage for over two hundred years and ex- 
acted from them an oppressive tribute as the 
price of a miserable existence, though a kind of 
poetic justice in anticipation of the awful cruel- 



112 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY, 

ties the Eussian czars, grand dukes and boyars 
should subsequently inflict on their own country- 
men. * Yet, while we deplore all those historic 
tragedies and, while the nod of our tyrants does 
not mean actual physical death to us, we are 
nevertheless, ruled by them with an iron scepter 
and they exact from us an oppressive and hu- 
miliating tribute, which we pay to the Rocke- 
fellers, the Morgans, the Hills and other great 
magnates and khans of predatory wealth, who are 
pillaging the American people, our modern 
Golden Horde, and we render humiliating hom- 
age to these monsters of oppression, who continue 
their nefarious crimes. These are not idle words 
or exaggerated sentiments. They are hard facts 
and stern and solemn realities; for the oppres- 
sions of our barons are only too keenly felt by 
the American people, who pay an intolerable trib- 
ute to the avaricious and oppressive trusts. 

If the people shall receive no relief from their 
enormous burdens, if reactionary, Bourbon poli- 
cies shall continue to prevail and the demands 
of a patient and long-suffering people shall go 
unheeded, then the time will come when their 
pent-up wrath can no longer be restrained. The 
authors of all our calamities should pause, 
solemnly pause, and contemplate the awful re- 
sults that will surely follow the continuance of 
their intolerable oppressions. Well may we re- 
peat the words of Louis XVI.: " Apres moi le 
deluge." 

As we have already observed, when Eome fell 
one hundred and nineteen families owned practi- 
cally all its wealth. It is reputed that one hun- 
dred families own most of our wealth. The Rev. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 113 

Madison C. Peters, pastor of the Tabernacle, 
Philadelphia, is reported to have stated that the 
Standard Oil Company, as already observed in 
this book, owned fifty per cent, of the entire wealth 
of the United States. We are, however, inclined 
to believe that his statement hyperbolical. Such 
an assertion is astounding and inconceivable. 
But if Rockefeller shall be allowed much longer 
to add to his already colossal and unheard-of for- 
tune, then the statement of the Rev. Peters will 
not be an exaggeration, but, rather, an under- 
estimate of the enormous wealth of the Oil King, 
who will own not only the United States, but the 
earth and the fullness thereof. It is an historic 
fact that when the French Revolution occurred 
the nobility and the clergy owned three-fourths 
of the kingdom of France. 

"I know no other way to judge the future but 
by the past," said Patrick Henry. Like causes 
will produce like effects. Conditions in our coun- 
try are analogous to those of ancient Rome and 
the kingdom of France in the time of the Grande 
Monarch. Our country possesses marvelous 
wealth and resources. In colossal fortunes and 
aggregate wealth it far exceeds any other nation 
of either ancient or modern times and overshad- 
ows every other nation in the world. Yet, in a 
land with all this fabulous wealth and almost 
inexhaustible resources, with plenty to supply 
the wants of every human being within the do- 
main of the Republic, with the teeming millions 
busy and comparatively few idle, it is a serious 
problem for most of the people to earn a decent 
livelihood. Millions of hard working people can 
scarcely keep body and soul together and thou- 



114 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

sands of others often suffer the pangs of hunger 
and can hardly keep the wolf from their doors. 

The reactionary orators and the hireling press 
have boasted of the well-paid and well-fed Amer- 
ican labor, contrasting it with the ill-paid and ill- 
fed pauper labor of Europe. But the full dinner 
pail cry can no longer deceive the people and 
nothing was heard of it during the last campaign, 
as the dinner pail has been empty for some time. 

It is true that the lot of the average working- 
man in America is better than that of the average 
laborer abroad; and it ought to be. It is inevi- 
table that the condition of the working classes in 
the old countries, which are crowded and con- 
gested, should be worse than those of our own 
country. But this is no answer to the claims of 
our own workingmen that they are not reaping 
the just fruits of their labor. Comparatively 
few receive high wages, and they skilled work- 
ingmen and artisans. Common laborers, who com- 
pose the bulk of the working classes, receive a 
mere pittance, a dollar and a half a day being 
a high average. 

Now, who will claim that any man, with the pre- 
vailing high prices, can afford to pay rent, live 
decently, educate his children and enjoy life on 
such a miserable stipend? Yet this is the condi- 
tion to which most of the American workingmen 
have been reduced. And yet the demagogic cam- 
paign orator will harang the people, indulge in 
fulsome adulation of them and try to make them 
believe that they are prosperous, contented and 
happy. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 115 



CHAPTER XII. 

Party Regularity One of the Chief Badges of 
Honor with Both Great Political Parties. 
They Decry all Independent Political Ac- 
tion. — Their Inconsistencies Exposed. 

We have already shown that the great masses, 
the rank and file of both parties adhere with re- 
ligious devotion to them. It is true there has 
been a tendency the last few years for the people 
to break away from them and at times it has 
seemed that party lines were not strictly drawn, 
but there has not been enough of it, and no pros- 
pect that there ever will be, to inspire any hope 
for the salvation of the country. 

It is still only too true that the great masses of 
the people yet blindly follow the fortunes of the 
parties. It is still a badge of honor with them 
to be regular in their devotions at the partisan 
shrine and party loyalty is generally an essential 
qualification in a candidate. It is not the JefTer- 
sonian test, "Is he honest, is he capable, is he 
patriotic V ' But is his political record straight — 
that is, has he ever wavered in his loyalty to his 
party, whether that party was right or wrong! 

Now every true and intelligent citizen must ad- 
mit that a man's political record may be straight 
and, paradoxical as it may seem, at the same time 
may be very crooked. If he has voted for corrupt 



116 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

and unprincipled politicians, if he has been more 
loyal to his party than to his country, then his 
record is crooked. Yet such a record in the eyes 
of the masses is a more enviable one than that of 
the noble citizen who sometimes scratches his 
ticket and refuses to support men and measures 
he deems detrimental to the interests of his 
country. 

You often hear some of those men who boast of 
their political regularity and who seem proud of 
the fact that they have never scratched a ticket 
loudly condemn other much more honorable men, 
who deem it proper occasionally to rebuke their 
party for what they regard its unfaithfulness to 
their country. Many of those men who are so 
bitter against others for exercising the right of 
suffrage to suit themselves while their political 
record is regular, are at the same time regular 
scoundrels and the most dangerous citizens of 
the country. And it is such base, corrupt and in- 
famous characters that seek to bring into dis- 
repute the most honorable men of the Republic. 

Thus the rank and file of both parties despise 
bolters and both those great political organiza- 
tions time and again have set the seal of their 
condemnation on every independent political ac- 
tion of the citizens that would endanger their suc- 
cess. Yet those same political parties, so 
tenacious of political discipline and which so 
vociferously condemn bolting, wage vigorous and 
aggressive campaigns to seduce men from their 
political allegiance and, while holding them up to 
execration for their unfaithfulness, do all in their 
power, often bribing them, to bolt. It is highly 
commendable and honorable in anvone if he will 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 117 

desert his party and come over to yours; but it 
is highly dishonorable and execrable for anyone 
to leave your party and join the opposite polit- 
ical organization. What a travesty on popular 
government and what a burlesque on patriotism 
is the inconsistent conduct of the two great his- 
toric political parties, the antithesis of all that is 
grand, noble, patriotic and inspiring! 



118 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

The Pernicious Influence of Political Patron- 
age. — Civil Service Laws Ineffective to 
Stop its Abuse. 

One of the great and inherent evils of democ- 
racy lies in the distribution of political patronage. 
In this great Republic such power is of colossal 
proportions and in all its ramifications it extends 
from the heart to the remotest confines of the 
Nation, diffusing itself through all its veins and 
arteries and circulating through the whole body 
politic. Its baneful influence is felt throughout 
the Republic. Like a vampire, it is sucking the 
very life-blood of the Nation and exhausting the 
fountain of patriotism. The evils of the system 
are ineradicable ; and, though to some extent they 
have been remedied by the Civil Service Laws, its 
pernicious influence exercises a fatal power over 
the destinies of the Republic and, in connection 
with the many other failures incident to our false 
system of government, if not arrested, will event- 
ually lead to its downfall. 

The positions under the government covered 
by the Civil Service Law are minor and subordi- 
nate appointments. The great and coveted places 
of honor and emoluments are exempt from its 
operation. All the high and exalted positions are 
filled by men of great political power and influ- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 119 

ence. The power of appointment to all those posi- 
tions is vested in the President. He is the modern 
Briareous with a hundred arms that reach out and 
seize and control. He sometimes holds a presi- 
dential nomination and even an election in the 
hollow of his hand. For he controls national con- 
ventions, names delegates and uses the tremend- 
ous power of official patronage to secure his 
renomination and reelection. The dear people 
are saved the trouble of interposing in that mat- 
ter. Everything is cut and dried and all the con- 
vention has to do is to ratify the will of the 
President. It is said that the " voice of the people 
is the voice of God." But here that voice is the 
voice of the godless or the goddess of riches. Yet 
some people, without cracking a smile, will tell 
you this is a government by the people. 

Again, the power of official patronage is used, 
not only to influence and control elections, but as 
a ponderous club to beat into submission the rep- 
resentatives of the people. This is the sword of 
Damocles that hangs over their heads, constantly 
menacing them and threatening dire consequences 
if they do not accede to the wishes and demands 
of an ambitious President. Do not deceive your- 
selves with the thought that it has no weight with 
them, for the still small voice of conscience is 
drowned in the clamor for political spoils, and to 
deprive a politician of them would be to leave 
him naked and exposed to his political enemies. 
With such tremendous power brought to bear to 
overawe and coerce them, how can our senators 
and representatives be the free and untrammeled 
tribunes of the people ? 

This great pressure is used to influence repre- 
sentatives to favor men and measures against 



120 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

their honest convictions, to espouse causes in their 
deliberate judgment inimical to the interests of 
the people. In effect, if not in intent, it is tamper- 
ing with their will and bribing their unfaithful 
public servants with gifts of political patronage. 

It requires the greatest probity, the greatest 
moral courage and the most exalted character to 
resist all the multifarious temptations that beset 
the paths of public men. And that statesman who 
has successfully withstood, on the one hand, the 
clamors of the multitude for ill-advised legisla- 
tion and, on the other hand, the Atlas pressure 
of public patronage that would force him to sacri- 
fice his honest convictions of duty on the unholy 
altar of ambition — he, indeed, deserves a niche in 
every patriotic heart; he ? indeed, is worthy to 
be apotheosized and to be numbered with the gods. 

All public men are human as the rest of us. All 
public men are ambitious. And it is inconceiv- 
able that they should be immune from the com- 
mon frailties of human nature. Even granting 
that the best of them are chosen to fill lofty polit- 
ical stations, still the temptations that beset them 
are not those of ordinary mortals. And, if their 
virtues and moral courage are above those of 
the average citizen, their temptations are, also, 
proportionately greater. But, as a matter of fact, 
very often they are much worse than the average 
citizen. They are more intelligent and astute, but 
in moral qualities they do not always measure up 
to average public virtue. The reasons are obvi- 
ous. In the first place, as already stated, they 
are all ambitious ; second, they are often chosen 
by the bosses ; third, they are bosses themselves 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 121 

in many cases, using political machinery, skill- 
fully manipulating party conventions, employing 
the steam roller and resorting to all the tricks 
'and wiles their ingenuity can invent to secure their 
nomination and election; fourth, there is some- 
times a combination of all these elements, and 
last, but not least, many are the pliant tools of the 
trusts, selected for their loyalty and devotion to 
the interests, and for whom those interested have 
contributed fabulous amounts of money to secure 
their election, and who faithfully serve their mas- 
ters, the rapacious trusts and corporations. It is 
said man was made in the image of God, his Crea- 
tor. And the infamous tools of the greedy trusts 
truly reflect the image of their makers in our 
legislative halls. It is true that occasionally a 
modern Rienzi rises to arouse his countrymen 
against their wrongs and oppressions and to 
break the shackles of their slavery ; but their ap- 
peals generally fall on deaf ears and their efforts 
are all as futile as were those of the illustrious 
Italian patriot. Bryan was extolled by the Demo- 
crats as a modern Rienzi, who sought to arouse 
his countrymen against the oppressions of preda- 
tory wealth and to warn them of the grave dan- 
gers that menaced their liberties. But all his 
eloquence could not stem the tide of the opposi- 
tion, inspired by the fear of free silver and 
strengthened and rendered irresistible by im- 
mense campaign funds, according to Democratic 
authority. 

It may be true that the country acted wisely 
in rejecting free silver, but Democrats declared 
that the gold standard triumph was a victory of 



122 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

capita] over labor and of money over manhood. 
They, also, asseverate that the main principles 
of Bryan were subsequently incorporated into 
the Republican platform and recognized as right 
by his political adversaries, who had stolen his 
political thunder. They aver the planks in Bry- 
an's platform that the Republicans had declared 
rotten in the campaign of 1896 were the main 
timbers in the platform of Theodore Roosevelt 
and that even so big a man as Taft could stand 
on them. The main principles advocated by 
Bryan have, indeed, since become the declared 
policies (mind you, we say the declared policies) 
of bo+h parties. That which was heresy yester- 
day is orthodoxy to-day. That which was re- 
cently denounced so vehemently as an assault on 
vested rights and as anarchy, is accepted to-day 
as a cardinal principle by both the great political 
parties. For they both profess to be in favor of 
curbing the power of the great corporations and 
trusts. Democrats boast that the Republicans 
were not only silent in 1896 about the monstrous 
iniquities of the trusts, but were their warm 
friends and champions, vehemently denouncing 
Bryan for his assaults on the money power, but 
that by a slight of political legerdemain the Re- 
publican party suddenly reversed its position — 
that is, it tried to delude the people with the idea 
that it had — and the denunciators of yesterday 
have become the ardent champions to-day of cor- 
porate rpgulatio-n. 

But, though Bryan's main principles have be- 
come the recognized tenets of the two great polit- 
ical parties, yet Bryan himself has been 
repudiated not only by the whole county, but by 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 123 

his own party. He who but recently was the idol 
of that party and whose wonderful power, elo- 
quence and magnetism elicited the applause and 
admiration of even his political opponents, who 
was ' ' the observed of all observers, ' ' the ' ' cyno- 
sure of all eyes," discredited in the minds of his 
erstwhile admiring and devoted followers, is re- 
jected and repudiated in the house of his friends. 

"But yesterday he might have stood against the world; 
Now none so poor to do him reverence." 

Whence this sudden change, this metamorpho- 
sis, in the attitude of the people, and especially of 
his own party, towards Bryan? If he is right 
now — and the people have by their suffrages pro- 
claimed that he is — then he was right in 1896 and 
1900. Principles are eternal and never change. 
If it is right to apply his principles to-day in 
the solution of political problems, it was right in 
1896 and 1900 and it was always right. But 
mores, homines et tempora mutant, "customs, men 
and times change. ' ' And they should change. But it 
should be progress, not retrogression; it should 
be improvement, not deterioration. 

Herein lies another inherent and fatal defect 
of democracy, the instability and mutability of 
the people. Hence republics have been denounced 
as ingrates. Could a graver indictment be 
brought against a nation? 

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind. 
Thou art not so unkind 

As man's ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 

Although thy breath is rude." 

"Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend !" 



124 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Never was the trite saying, "the ingratitude of 
republics,' ' more forcibly exemplified than in the 
case of Bryan. Though his political principles 
have won in the affections of the great masses of 
the people, yet he who was the first to promulgate 
and champion them is immolated on the altar of 
party ambition and expediency and, like Pericles 
of old, he is now a political exile. 

If there is one element essential to a successful 
administration of government, it is stability — a 
strict and constant adherence to those principles 
that best promote the welfare and happiness of 
the people and the glory of the country. 

Now, what are those principles, that are so es- 
sential in all virtuous and patriotic governments I 
Ability and virtue are of paramount importance. 
They are the Siamese twins, the sine qua non, the 
indispensable elements in all good governments, 
"the expectancy and rose of the fair State.' ' By 
ability we mean all the intellectual qualities that 
constitute a great statesman; virtue, we hardly 
need say, includes all the noble qualities of mind 
and heart that constitute true manhood and are 
so essential to true Christian character. Of 
course, neither ability nor virtue in perfection 
can be found in any human character. The reins 
of government, however, should be trusted only 
to those who measure the most nearly up to those 
essential qualifications. Though there can be no 
dispute about this, the trouble rises as to the 
form of government that is best calculated to 
secure this beneficent purpose. Ah! "there's the 
rub," the means to attain this object," a consum- 
mation devoutly to be wished." But about this 
more anon. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 125 

Now, in a democracy there is no such thing as 
stability, no adherence to established principles 
of government, but the people, as we have repeat- 
edly noted, are generally swayed by sentiment 
when not controlled by sinister influences. There 
is only one thing in which they are stable, and 
that is in their party allegiance; but this, para- 
doxical as it may seem, is the strongest proof of 
their instability. Their sentimental devotion 
causes them to support any man and any meas- 
ure, as well as any political principle their party 
may favor or advocate. With them it is treason 
to desert the party standard. Though their party 
one year may declare for a certain set of political 
principles and the next year repudiate them, pro- 
mulgating others diametrically opposed to them, 
still the rank and file will cling with idolatrous 
devotion to its fortunes or its misfortunes. With 
them the names, Republican and Democrat are 
names to conjure with. Those names have a 
magic influence on the multitude. Each term is 
an alchemy that transmutes the baser metals into 
gold. A monster of vice becomes a saint ; what was 
abhorrent to them yesterday to-day is beneficent 
and patriotic, provided only it receive the sanc- 
tion of their party. With them party is a "di- 
vinely hedged-about king." The king can do no 
wrong. Long live the king. Though they boast 
of their liberties and the mere mention of king or 
emperor stirs them sometimes to indignation, yet 
the most abject vassal was never more obsequious 
in his devotions to his prince as these modern 
political slaves are to the tyrant party. They 
offer many frivolous and flimsy excuses for 
this blind partisan devotion. They will tell you 



126 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

that everything is fair in politics as in love 
and war. Was ever a principle more abominable 
and abhorrent announced? Conld anything be 
more repugnant to all just conceptions of good 
government? Should the principle of the Dark 
Ages, the doctrine that the end justifies the means r 
be applied in this enlightened day and time f Yet 
this is the opinion of the average citizen of this 
great republic as shown by the political records of 
a hundred years. It may be disputed, but docu- 
mentary evidence proves it and the people have 
been caught -flagrante delicto. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 127 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Corrupt Primary Elections. — Money Triumph- 
ant over Manhood. 

The same blind partisan devotion is exhibited 
in our primary, as well as in our general, elec- 
tions. It is the commonly conceived opinion that 
all who enter a primary are in honor bound to 
support the party nominee. In other words, how- 
ever unworthy or dishonorable that nominee may 
be, honor requires that all who participated in 
the primary should support him, though it seems 
to be a queer kind of honor that requires anyone 
to support a dishonorable candidate. But, waiv- 
ing this delicate question of political casuistry, 
the very fact that it has been raised shows to what 
a low ebb party morality has been reduced in this 
country. The consequence is that very often the 
most high-minded and conscientious men, with 
delicate scruples, refrain from participating in 
the primary elections; and, as the most corrupt 
elements never fail to do so, the elections fre- 
quently go by default to unworthy and unscrupu- 
lous candidates. 

Again, as it requires a superabundance of 
money to carry elections and, as poor men have 
not thousands of dollars to devote to the wheel 
of political fortune or to. sacrifice on the altar of 
ambition, they are thus practically excluded from 
exalted political stations and very often men of 



128 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY. 

inferior ability are chosen and men of superior 
talents are left to enjoy the shades of private life. 
What, then, becomes of the vain boast of political 
equality in this country? It is but an irridescent 
dream. Thus vice triumphs over virtue and 
money over manhood, and the two essential ele- 
ments of good government are eliminated. 

For a democracy to be successful, it must be as- 
sumed that either the people are capable of judg- 
ing men and measures and of deciding grave and 
intricate political problems, or that they always 
follow the wise counsel of good and able leaders. 
Now, the first assumption cannot be maintained. 
For, as we have already observed, the people are 
no more competent to decide great political ques- 
tions than they are to diagnose the case of a pa- 
tient suffering with a malady that requires the 
skill of some great physician or specialist to cure. 
Does any man of sense when he is suffering with 
some disease, call in the multitude to diagnose 
his case and to prescribe the remedy for it? Yet 
this is precisely what is done in a democracy and 
in ours theoretically. But could anything be more 
preposterous ? Our body politic is suffering with 
many political ills, some of which it has endured 
from its foundation down to the present time. De- 
mocracy is the physician we have tried, but its 
empiric remedies have all failed. Should we be 
astonished that all the quack nostrums that have 
been applied have proved unsuccessful? When 
did the multitude possess the wisdom to decide in- 
telligently any great question with which able 
statesmen have to grapple? They are not fitted 
by temperament, intelligence, or experience to 
solve grave political problems, and to vest them 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 129 

with such power is a parody on good government. 
It is a conservative estimate that not one person 
m a hundred is really capable of self-government, 
that not one person in a hundred can exercise in- 
telligently the elective franchise. We mean, too, 
in our own land ; the country as a whole can show 
only a corporal's guard of those worthy to exer- 
cise that right. You may search the country over 
and a most careful investigation will not disclose 
in the most cultured and intelligent communities a 
decimal part of the citizens that should be clothed 
with the elective franchise. 

What is average public opinion? In the light 
of history it is not a safe beacon to guide states- 
men and to shape the destiny of a nation. Aver- 
age public opinion did not secure English liber- 
ties. It was the nobles, the barons, that wrung 
Magna Charta from the reluctant King John at 
Runnymede. England owes all her liberties to 
those bold and patriotic nobles, who laid the 
foundation of her venerable constitution. Subse- 
quent revolutions and reforms have strengthened 
it, but the principle of liberty was never extinct 
under that constitution, though often dormant 
under some arbitrary rulers like Elizabeth, Henry 
VIII., Charles I., and James II. 

As we have already noted, Great Britain is to- 
day the most democratic government in the world. 
Yet the English people possessed substantially 
the same liberties and privileges under George 
III. as they do to-day under George V. The Eng- 
lish constitution was substantially the same over 
one hundred years ago as at the present time. 

Now, let it be remembered that in the reign of 
George III. only about one-tenth of the people 



130 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY. 

or England were vested with the elective fran- 
chise; and, as, of course, that franchise has been 
one of growth, in former times the proportion 
mnst have been still less. Therefore, the glorions 
British constitution was not established by the 
people, but rather in spite of them. 

The people have opposed all great reforms. 
Verily, democracy is a stumbling block in the 
way of progress. In England democracy opposed 
the repeal of the oppressive laws against Catho- 
lics ; it would tolerate no mitigation of the rigors 
of persecution of that unfortunate sect. Any at- 
tempt to alleviate their unhappy condition was 
followed by riots, demolition of Catholic cathe- 
drals and outrages on the persons of Catholic sub- 
jects. Such outrages were condemned by the most 
intelligent and respectable Protestants of the 
Kingdom, among whom the great orator Burke 
was foremost in vehement denunciation of them. 

Democracy, also, opposed the repeal of the 
Corn Laws, though subsequent years have vindi- 
cated the wisdom of Sir Eobert Peel. 

Take the history of England from the earliest 
ages of its constitution down through all the cen- 
turies to the revolution in 1688, and to this day, 
and democracy has either been passive or antag- 
onized every great reform looking to the ameliora- 
tion of the human race. Democracy is intolerant. 
It hates science and heretics. It imprisoned Gali- 
leo and burned Bruno at the stake. It ridiculed 
Columbus and derided his idea of the rotundity of 
the world. 

But it is said that in those times even the most 
learned and intelligent people were intolerant. Yet 
while this is true, they were backed by democracy, 
without whose power they could not have perpe- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 131 

tratecl their nefarious crimes ; for democracy 
sanctioned and approved all their brntalities. 

If the people had been inspired by the spirit 
of toleration and progress; if they conld have 
divested themselves of their bigotry and opposed 
the persecutions of their fellow men, the fires of 
those persecutions would not have been kindled 
and some of the most awful and bloody dramas 
of the world's history would not have been en- 
acted. But, if they did not always actually par- 
ticipate in those bloody scenes, most they abet- 
ted and in others they connived. 

Yet, even in those benighted times, there were 
a few noble and tolerant spirits who deeply de- 
plored the crimes of persecution, but their paucity 
deprived them of the power to stem the tide of re- 
ligious fanaticism. 

While imperialism, absolutism and the Roman 
hierarchy swayed the world during the Middle 
Ages, and while the persecutions may be justly 
charged to the various emperors, kings, princes 
and to the Roman Pontiffs within whose jurisdic- 
tions their flames were lighted, yet, in view of the 
fact that those persecutions met the hearty ap- 
proval of the people, and further, in the light of 
the notorious truth that the ignorant and super- 
stitious multitudes are far more bigoted and fan- 
atical than those that are enlightened, while we 
shudder at the atrocities of the cruel auto de fe 
and the massacres of Saint Bartholomew and the 
Sicilian Vespers, yet all of those horrors must be 
counted as merciful compared to the conditions 
that would have prevailed, had the rabble been al- 
lowed to have full sway and to give free reins to 
their fanatical and unbridled religious passions. 



132 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Then, indeed, would have ensued scenes of hor- 
hors, atrocities and woes that no words can tell 
and no pen describe. Happy, insooth, for mediae- 
val times that they escaped the awful scourge of 
democracy. 

While it may be contended that in those times 
most of the royalty and nobility, as well as many 
of the clergy were intensely ignorant, yet, as they, 
and especially the clergy, possessed all the learn- 
ing and enlightenment of those ages, and as the 
common people were steeped in ignorance and 
superstition, a superficial observer can readily 
perceive that the world was fortunate to have es- 
caped the dominion of democracy. 

But says a modern political philosopher: "Pla- 
to, thou reasonest well!" "I agree with you that 
people so ignorant as those of mediaeval times can 
not safely be trusted with the reins of govern- 
ment, but that we live in a more enlightened age 
and the people are more intelligent; that, as dif- 
ferent conditions now prevail, what would have 
been preposterous then is now proper and wise." 

While the world as a whole is much more en- 
lightened than it was during the Dark Ages, the 
vulgar mind is not yet sufficiently illumined to be 
vested with the reins of government. It is still 
opposed to progress. In this respect only is 
democracy like the Creator, "it is the same yes- 
terday, to-day and forever." 

As we have already observed, there were a few 
noble spirits in those times of persecution who 
had higher aspirations than the generality of men. 
There was a deep and silent undercurrent beneath 
the turbulent billows of political and religious 
rancor and discord, that was slowly but surely in- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 133 

fluencing mankind. Many adventitious and for- 
tunate aids came to those intelligent and pious 
men, who were "the salt of the earth;" and 
whose aspirations were onward and upward, hop- 
ing for better and nobler things. Among those 
succors were the inventions of printing and gun- 
powder and the discovery of America, which gave 
a great impetus to learning and served to en- 
lighten and broaden men's minds. But the masses 
still clung tenaciously to their deep-seated preju- 
dices. Religious toleration could be secured only 
by a baptism of flood and, fire. The furies of per- 
secution were let loose and wars devastated almost 
the whole of Europe. And in all those wars the 
religious and political prejudices of the people 
played a more or less conspicuous part. For, if 
some wise heads sought conciliation; if they en- 
deavored to harmonize the contending factions, or 
sects, or to restore peace to the warring nations 
all their efforts were frustrated by ambitious 
princes or rivals who deluded the people under 
the shallow pretext that they were battling for the 
honor of their religion or country. 

Let not all the blame for the bitter persecutions 
and sanguinary wars that have crimsoned so many 
pages of history, rest on the heads of ambitious 
men and cruel tyrants alone; the people them- 
selves are primarily responsible. For any peo- 
ple worthy to be free will be free. No tyrant 
with all his great military power can withstand the 
aroused patriotism and courage of a whole nation. 
The very fact that a people will endure the op- 
pressions of a tyrant is one of the strongest indict- 
ments of democracy. 



134 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

As previously noted, democracy in every age 
and clime is the immutable enemy of progress. 
When we examine the history of our own country, 
we find that the leopard has not changed his spots. 
Democracy, as exemplified in the United States, 
has been the inveterate and malignant foe of prog- 
ress. 

Founded on the Declaration of Independence 
that declared that "all men are created equal, " 
right at the outset our country departed from that 
principle, excluding African slaves from its bene- 
fits, though those bondsmen were evidently men. 
And thus it was conceded that not all men are 
created equal. In the following chapter we shall 
treat the Slavery Question. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 135 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Slavery Question. — The Democratic Paety 
Champion of Slaveky. — Its Abolition. — The 
Slavery of the People to Monoply. 

Slavery had been abolished in all the other en- 
lightened countries of the world, where the appall- 
ing evils of the system had been early recognized. 
But here, under the benign influence of democracy 
and liberty, it nourished like a green bay tree for 
about a hundred years. During the revolutionary 
period and subsequently there were a few wise and 
good men who were opposed to slavery, among 
whom was Thomas Jefferson. But no one then 
even dreamed of emancipation. Of course, it was 
beyond the province and jurisdiction of the na- 
tional government to interfere with the institution 
as it existed in the Southern States. But there 
was manifested in the North a determined opposi- 
tion to its further extension into the territories. 
It gave rise to many acrimonious debates in Con- 
gress and caused much bitter sectional animosity. 
The Democratic party championed the slave 
cause, but the Whig party, not disposed to alien- 
ate the element of it that favored slavery, re- 
mained neutral. 

Thus we had one great party that styled itself 
the Democratic party ardently supporting an in- 
stitution that was a disgrace to the age, an insti- 
tution, too, that was diametrically opposed to the 
very fundamental principles of democracy, and 
also another great party, the Whig party that cow- 



136 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

ardly evaded the issue of slavery in order to re- 
tain or to secure political power and that met its 
just doom — extinction. 

In the meantime the Republican party, the bit- 
ter foe of slavery, had arisen. The readers know 
the sequel. After one of the greatest and most 
sanguinary wars of all time slavery in the United 
States was abolished. In other enlightened coun- 
tries like England and France its abolition caused 
no great political convulsions ; but here, where the 
institution was as palpably unjust and inhumane, 
one whole section of the country that prided itself 
on its democracy fought and bled to save it from 
destruction, not because it was right, but because 
they thought it was profitable. Nearly a million 
lives and billions in treasure were lost in that un- 
happy conflict, not to speak of the untold suffer- 
ings, sorrow and anguish it caused. 

That war could and should have been averted. 
If the advice of sober and sensible men had been 
heeded ; if wise and conciliatory counsels had pre- 
vailed, the country would have been saved from 
that awful scourge. But prejudiced and fanatical 
multitudes, as we have endeavored to impress on 
the minds of our readers, do not listen to the voice 
of reason, but are swayed by the counsels of am- 
bitious and dangerous demagogues. 

It, however, has been contended that, as the 
Union was saved, the experiment of democracy 
has proved a success ; that peace has been estab- 
lished on a firm foundation and that the frequently 
recurring revolutions, that are the bane of most 
republics, will not disturb our country. 

It is true we do not surfer the frequent insur- 
rections that afflict the Spanish- American States. 
But this does not signify that all our people are 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 137 

contented and happy. For long have the masses 
groaned nnder the despotism of grievons and op- 
pressive monopolies. The war tore the shackles 
from 3,000,000 of black slaves, bnt to-day the 
whole people are suffering the grinding tyranny 
of the rapacious trusts. In vain have they looked 
for relief from their intolerable burdens to their 
representatives in Congress. No heed has been 
paid to their prayers, remonstrances or demands. 
For what relief could they expect from Congress 
controlled by the trusts and the predatory inter- 
ests ? The money power is supreme and arrogant 
and runs rough-shod over the rights and liberties 
of the people. 

Yes ; there is peace, but it is the lull that pre- 
cedes the tempest. The people have been patient 
and long suffering and, unless their condition 
shall be materially alleviated, we shudder for the 
awful calamities to our country. 

The people, however, have only themselves to 
blame for their deplorable condition. For have 
we not been taught that this country is a democ- 
racy, wherein the people rule? Did not the Dec- 
laration of Independence proclaim the right of 
the people to the pursuit of happiness? But, 
though they have been pursuing it for over a 
century, they have not yet succeeded in over- 
taking it. 

Thus again is demonstrated the incapacity of 
the people for self-government. For, if accord- 
ing to the advocates of democracy our republic is 
the most conspicuous example of the success of 
popular government, how will those advocates ex- 
plain why the great masses of the people are not 
in the enjoyment of that contentment and hap- 
piness that should flow from all beneficent govern- 
ments? 



138 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Miscellaneous Reasons Showing the Incapacity 
of the People fok Self-Government. — The 
Failuke of Democeacy. — Vabious Authori- 
ties in Favor of This View Cited. 

All men want to be contented and happy. And, 
vested with the elective franchise, had they been 
capable of wielding so great a power and had ex- 
ercised it properly, onr people should not now be 
confronted by conditions so deplorable. Their 
failure is due to the inherent defects of democracy. 

"If there were a people consisting of gods; 
they would be governed democratically. So per- 
fect a government is not suitable to men," says 
Rousseau. As we ponder these words of that great 
political philosopher in the light of historic facts 
and the present prevailing conditions, we must be 
struck by the force of his sage opinion. For our 
own observations must convince us that universal 
suffrage must ever fail to meet the requirements 
of good government and that democracy can never 
be successful on this mundane sphere. For no 
people will ever be able to measure up to those re- 
quirements till the millennium, when, democracy 
having met its doom, all good men will be sancti- 
fied monarchists, bowing at the Great White 
Throne of the Saviour, Jesus, the Glorious King. 

0. A. Browning styles democracy "a mischiev- 
ous dream." And in the presence of his Majesty 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 139 

Jesus on that Great Day we shall no longer be 
tormented by that hideous nightmare. 

"Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd," 
says Voltaire, the great French philosopher and 
author. We have already endeavored to impress 
this fact on the minds of our readers. No govern- 
ment can be successful when great political prob- 
lems are to be determined by the prejudices of the 
rabble. Such problems should be considered in a 
judicial spirit and decided on their own merits. 
But the prejudiced multitudes, even if they were 
otherwise capable, cannot divest themselves of 
partisan bias and in a judicial frame of mind pass 
judgment on any important measure. This vulgar 
prejudice is one of the inherent evils of democ- 
racy that is worse than ignorance. For ignorance 
alone may be enlightened, but when it strikes 
hands with prejudice, then you have a combination 
of obstinacy almost insuperable. 

With all their prejudices and sentimentalism, 
however, the common herd are of a mercurial tem- 
perament. While they obstinately adhere to anti- 
quated notions ; while they inherit their religious 
and political opinions, yet in most matters they 
are inconstant and volatile. "As inclination 
changes, thus ebbs and flows the tide of public 
judgment," says Schiller, the great German poet. 
"A habitation giddy and unsure hath he that 
buildeth on the vulgar heart, ' ' observed the 
myriad-minded Shakespeare. If any mortal could 
fathom the depths of the human heart, it was 
the Bard of Avon. And in this metaphor he ex- 
presses with great force the fickleness and muta- 
bility of the common herd. 

Ignorance and prejudice are the twin foes of 
progress. And, as the multitude possesses them 



140 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

in a preeminent degree, it irresistibly follows that 
democracy is opposed to progress. "I have con- 
stantly observed that the generality of people 
are fifty years at least behind in their politics," 
was the sage observation of Sir Edmund Bnrke. 
Ignorance and prejudice cannot keep abreast of 
the times. It is not the many, bnt the few, that 
confer great blessings on the world. Of the bil- 
lions of humanity that have inhabited this ter- 
restrial sphere from the most ancient period down 
to the present day, how few there are whose 
names have gone "ringing down the grooves of 
time;" how few have left a lasting impress on the 
history of the world. Verily, the list of immortals 
is a narrow one. ' ' How soon are we forgot when 
we are gone. " It is only genins that survives the 
ravages of ' ' cormorant, devouring time ; ' ' only 
those who have wrought wonders and left a deep 
impress on the history of the world are crowned 
with the immortelle. It required the genius of 
Luther to accomplish the Reformation and the 
mathematical prodigy Sir Isaac Newton to dis- 
cover the law of gravitation. Every important 
reform in the history of the world has been 
achieved by the few; and, if the multitude have 
ever approved any important change, it was not on 
their own initiative, but simply because they hap- 
pened to follow a good and wise leader. 

The best democrat is really, though uncon- 
sciously an aristocrat. For he contends that the 
people can be trusted to follow good and wise 
leadership. But if it is true that they do follow 
such leadership, then the leaders, and not the peo- 
ple, are the real sovereigns. For it is the few, and 
not the many, then, that virtually rule; and this, 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 141 

under the guise of democracy, is aristocracy. It 
matters not that the people of their own volition 
and even with devotion follow great and good lead- 
ers. If they have given to those leaders their full 
and unreserved confidence ; if they have surrend- 
ered to them all their political opinions, and, if in 
exercising the elective franchise, they simply do so 
in a perfunctory sort of way, mere puppets in the 
hands of politicians to do their bidding, then the 
people have abdicated their sovereignty and the 
leaders are the real rulers. 

This, however, is diametrically opposed to the 
fundamental and vital principles of democracy, 
which inculcates the political dogma of the super- 
ior wisdom and virtue of the people ; which 
proclaims the monstrous doctrine of their infalli- 
bility; that the people are the masters and their 
representatives are but their humble and obse- 
quious servants, chosen to execute their mandates 
and to embody their sovereign will into law. 

The evils that must flow from such a system, 
where ignorance and incapacity instruct wisdom 
and capacity, are palpable and inevitable. If rep- 
resentatives are to be deprived of their independ- 
ence ; if brilliant intellectual faculties and talents 
are to be enslaved and statesmen are merely to 
register the decrees of the multitude, the laws 
must inevitably bear the impress and stamp of 
mediocrity and vary with the whims and caprices 
of the fickle many. 

But history proves that the people cannot be 
trusted to follow wise and virtuous leadership. 
Many reasons have already been given for this 
stern and solemn fact. If their leaders have in- 
dependent views, they hesitate to formulate them 






142 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

into policies and "they are manifestly listening 
nervously at one end of a speaking tube which re- 
ceives at its other end the suggestions of a lower 
intelligence, ' ' says Sir Henry Maine. The repre- 
sentatives are swayed by the opinions of the 
people and they in turn are influenced and dom- 
inated by political bosses; and great questions 
affecting a nation are determined by a narrow co- 
terie of political demagogues, the pliant tools of 
selfish and unscrupulous politicians, or of the cor- 
rupt and predatory interests that inveigle the un- 
wary and credulous multitude into the support of 
measures detrimental to the country. 

The average citizen has no political opinion of 
his own. It is a well-known fact that in every 
community there are a few people of superior in- 
telligence who absolutely dominate its political 
thought. In many of them it is often one above all 
others to whose opinions the people pay homage. 
Again, there are opposing parties or factions with 
their leaders, in whom their partisans confide. 
While some of these leaders are worthy and hon- 
orable, many others are base and corrupt. But 
the ignorant multitude have not the intelligence 
to discriminate between them and the corrupt 
element has no inclination to do so, but follow 
venality as a trade and sell their suffrages to the 
highest bidders. 

Therefore, public opinion is a most mutable and 
uncertain thing. As to the virtues of any states- 
man or the merits of any public measure or 
policy, it is a poor criterion. To-day it will apoth- 
eosize a man; to-morrow it will anathematize 
him. A measure that they have approved at one 
election they will repudiate at the next. ' ' Popular 
opinion is the greatest lie in the world," said Car- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 143 

lyle. Bryan, once the idol of his party, is now re- 
pudiated. Rochefoucauld says "our merit gains 
us the esteem of the virtuous ; our star that of the 
public.'' How true, as illustrated in the political 
careers of the Peerless Leader and the Rough 
Rider. "Uneasy rests the head that wears a 
crown," — bestowed by the fickle multitude. Bry- 
an's followers adored him so long as they imag- 
ined there was any hope of success; but, when 
once they became convinced that he could not win 
the Presidency, his popularity declined and his po- 
litical star faded away. Likewise, the star of 
Roosevelt, the erstwhile idol of the people, for the 
time being at least, declined, though at the present 
moment as we are writing, it is rising again and, 
if his ambition shall be realized, will become Lord 
High of the Ascendant. But, though both those 
great leaders have been repudiated and whether 
or not Roosevelt shall be able to reclaim his for- 
mer popularity — to i ' come back, ' ' their main polit- 
ical principles are still fondly cherished by the 
most virtuous and patriotic people. 

P. T. Barnum said that "the American people 
loved to be humbugged." As he himself had so 
often humbugged them, he was, no doubt, a com- 
petent critic in that line. 

Are the people, then, who are the so-easy dupes 
of gold-brick men and fakirs of all sorts and who 
are the victims of designing politicians, suited to 
the exercise of so important a function as the 
elective franchise? The proper exercise of so 
important a right requires judgment and discern- 
ment And certainly a people that can not dis- 
tinguish between a hawk and a hand-saw are not 
fit to decide important measures of public policy 
or to svvav the destinies of a nation. 



144 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

The advocates of popular government cite the 
great men our country has produced as a vindi- 
cation cf democracy and allege that that fact to 
a great extent sustains their form of government. 

This claim, however, is without any solid basis 
to support it. While the country has produced a 
few great men, they were not the products of 
democracy. For men of equal genius in any other 
country with constitutional government would 
have made their marks and risen to lofty emi- 
nence. Anyone ordinarily conversant with the po- 
litical conditions of this country knows that the 
people have precious little to do with naming a 
candidate for President or any other high office. 
The politicians have this cut and dried. They may 
occasionally name a candidate of the popular 
choice, not because he is the popular choice, but 
because they deem him the most available candi- 
date. Lincoln is often cited as a shining ex- 
ample, showing the advantages of democracy 
in his meteoric rise from humble birth to exalted 
power and fame. The rise of the Martyr Presi- 
dent from a rail-splitter to the Chief Magistracy 
of the greatest nation in the world was, indeed, 
marvelous and, though his death was tragic, his 
life was most romantic. But both his nomination 
and election to the Presidency were only acci- 
dents, speaking from a human stand-point. For 
he was simply nominated as the most available 
candidate of his party. While he was a promi- 
nent man at the time and had won a national 
reputation, it is probable that a majority of the 
Republicans preferred Seward as their standard 
bearer. At any rate, when elected he was a 
minority candidate chosen by a plurality. For, 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 145 

had the Democratic party been united, Lin- 
coln would have been defeated. Therefore, it is 
plain that he succeeded in spite of democracy. 

The advocates of democracy, also, boast of a 
long line of illustrious Presidents. Yet, out of all 
of them, how few were really great men. Meas- 
ured by the intellect, Lincoln was the greatest of 
them all. But, if democracy is to receive credit 
for its illustrious Presidents, it must, also, bear 
the opprobrium of having rejected still greater 
men. There is another long line of illustrious 
statesmen more worthy to have been President 
than most of those who filled, or, rather, held, that 
exalted station. Hamilton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, 
Cass, Blaine and others failed in their ambition to 
reach that coveted honor. It is a historic fact that 
Clay, Calhoun and Webster were known as the 
Great Trio, geniuses of the first order, the great- 
est men of their age, and Webster the greatest 
orator the country ever produced. But with all 
their commanding genius, splendid statesmanship, 
lofty integrity and great public services, the peo- 
ple rejected them for military heroes or others of 
mediocre talents. 



146 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Political Cokkuption as Shown in Tammany 
Hall. — Its Political Bosses. — Demagogy. — 
Modekn Political Hydes and Jekylls. — 
False Political Ethics. 

We have already described the political corrup- 
tions that afflict our country. But there is one 
great political organization in the land so con- 
spicuous for its corrupt power and influence in 
elections as to deserve particular attention. "We 
refer to Tammany Hall, the most powerful, the 
most autocratic and the most unscrupulous politi- 
cal organization in the world. Through its sach- 
ems that unholy organization has ruled the Me- 
tropolis with an iron and despotic hand for many 
years and, likewise, plundered it all these years. 
The grip of that infamous gang on that city has 
been so strong that few of them have ever been 
punished for their crimes. However, Boss Tweed, 
who had stolen millions from the people, was for- 
tunately convicted and sent to Sing Sing — to sing 
another song, we presume. And, if the charges 
of many reputable people be true, there many 
others of them ought to be. 

Boss Croker, having accumulated millions, re- 
turned to his native land, where he owns his castle 
and has a long retinue of retainers. We dare say 
that his humblest flunkey does not bow down to 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 147 

him with greater obeisance than his political re- 
tainers and flunkies kow-towed to him when, as 
New York's Great Lord, he was in the palm of his 
power and glory, when as Tammany's boss, he 
swayed the destinies of the greatest city in the 
Union. 

For many years the Presidential election hinged 
on New York State. As that State went, so went 
the Union. The power of Tammany Hall often 
turned the political scales, and thus a political boss 
sometimes decided the Presidential election. 
Therefore, in State elections, when the prepon- 
derance of power of the one party over the other 
is not great, the balance of power is held by cor- 
rupt political bosses in the large cities and often 
they virtually rule the country. Though spas- 
modic attempts at reform have been made, in 
nearly every instance they have failed. The power 
of the bosses rests on the corrupt, vicious and 
criminal element, that not only always vote, but 
sometimes vote several times at the same election, 
and, not only that, they visit the cemeteries, take 
the names from the monuments and tombstones 
and also have them voted. Let it not be said that 
they do not respect the wisdom of their fathers. 
For they certainly remember their ancestors and 
accord them a great deal of power, if not honor. 
Nor should they be charged with ingratitude to 
their beloved progenitors, since they pay homage 
to them in the pilgrimages that every election day 
they make to their sacred tombs. 

They are not only guilty of these crimes, but 
they frequently prevent the honest voter from ex- 
ercising his right of suffrage, or, after he has 
voted, he is counted out of it. Often ballot-boxes 



148 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

are stolen, ballots defaced or destroyed and every 
trick and snbterfnge that criminal ingenuity can 
imagine or contrive is invented to debauch and 
corrupt elections and to overthrow the will of the 
people. 

Though a great majority of the citizens are 
good, yet our political conditions are so corrupt 
that many of the best of them refrain from partici- 
pating in politics for fear of contamination. Many 
politicians themselves, who have had simple prac- 
tical experience, will tell you that politics is very 
corrupt and that they are called on to do things 
that in private life they should deem dishonora^ 
ble and spurn with indignation. 

There seems to be a code of morals for politics 
diametrically opposed to that of private life, or 
rather, there is no code at all, for according to 
some politicians, everything is fair in politics. 
But, whatever may be political ethics, the moral 
element to a great extent has been eliminated 
from politics and selfish ambition and greed for 
the profits and emoluments of office have been en- 
throned instead of patriotism and virtue. Thus a 
vicious minority rules a virtuous, but weak and 
servile, majority. 

We have already alluded to the opinion of some 
politicians, that everything is fair in politics. 
There are many men who, in private life, are hon- 
orable and upright in all their dealings with their 
fellowmen and whose habits are exemplary; but 
when it comes to politics they are metamorphosed ; 
they have a dual character ; on the political stage 
they masquerade. Their pure and noble private 
lives have inspired their fellow countrymen with 
confidence in them and they have been honored 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 149 

with lofty and lucrative official positions and 
places of high public trust. But in those high posi- 
tions, instead of serving their country faithfully 
and with an eye single to its highest honor and 
glory, they use all their efforts to ingratiate them- 
selves into the favor and graces of their party and 
are lauded to the skies for their loyalty to it. 
"Well done, good and faithful servant," cry the 
unthinking multitude; you have been true-blue 
Republicans, or Democrats, and deserve all the 
honors that have been conferred upon you! The 
fountain cannot be purer than its source. The 
representative cannot be better than his con- 
stituents. 



150 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Akistockacy and Plutocracy in the United 
States. 

The United States Not a Democracy, But a Plu- 
tocracy. — Many Cogent Reasons Given for 
This View. — The Two Periods of This Plu- 
tocracy. 

With all our vaunted free institutions, the stern 
and solemn fact confronts us that our country is 
not a democracy, but a plutocracy ; that democracy 
is but a fiction, a shallow pretense, a thin veneer, 
too gauzy to hide the hideousness and enormities 
of the plutocracy. 

This plutocracy may be divided into two pe- 
riods, the ante-bellum plutocracy and the post-bel- 
lum plutocracy. 

During the first period the slave holding aristoc- 
racy of the South dominated the Democratic party 
and through it the whole country. For sixty 
years the Democratic party, with only small inter- 
vals, controlled the destinies of the Nation. 

Paradoxical as it may be, that party that had 
taunted the Federalists with being monarchists 
and aristocrats, became the real aristocratic party. 
For the backbone of it was the slave-holding 
classes of the South, who spurned honest labor 
as a disgrace to be done only by slaves ; whereas 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 151 

in the North labor was highly honored and 
wealthy people did not despise toil. Led by Craw- 
ford, Calhoun, Hayne and other able Southern 
leaders for many years before the War they con- 
trolled the Democratic party, wrote its platforms, 
named its candidates for President and through 
it were masters of the country. The Democratic 
party in the North was like clay in their hands. 
Though it was occasionally given a sop in a can- 
didate for President, yet the platforms and the 
principles of the Democratic party were all in- 
spired by Southern men. 

The second period of plutocracy followed the 
War and continues to the present time, though the 
scene of its great power shifts from the South to 
Wall street and the East. The South shorn of 
its political power and the conditions reversed, 
the whole country, as we have endeavored to il- 
lumine, is now the prey of Wall Street, monopo- 
lies, trusts and other special interests. 

Democracy — there's no such thing; 
The money, money power's king. 
I do not care what men may say; 
'Tis money, money rules the day. 

That plutocracy has been firmly established in 
our country should surprise no intelligent person. 
Social or political equality, as already shown in 
these pages, is a Utopian dream. Death only can 
level all ranks. And, as different social conditions 
must prevail, it inevitably follows that there must 
be various orders of society of variegated degrees 
of rank. The power and influence of each citizen 
must be determined by his station in life. Though 
the Constitution and laws of the country do not 



152 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

recognize social distinctions, yet they exist in con- 
sonance with the higher laws of Nature, the su- 
preme arbiter in all human affairs. How futile, 
then, must be all attempts to break down social 
barriers, or to obliterate those distinctions that 
Nature herself has wisely created. 

Though in the Republic there are no orders of 
nobility and the Constitution and laws do not rec- 
ognize titles, yet there are class distinctions as 
pronounced as those that mark the various orders 
of nobility of Great Britain and the Continent. 
Americans love titles as well as any other people 
do. Our multi-millionaires court marital alliances 
with the illustrious nobility of Europe and to grat- 
ify their social ambition, give their daughters 
with princely dowries to worthless scions of nobil- 
ity. Our rich heiresses themselves, also, covet glit- 
tering coronets and, ambitious to shine at royal 
courts, give their hands in marriage to foreign 
dukes, or princes, generally impecunious and prof- 
ligate sons of nobility. 

When you hear an American proclaiming oppo- 
sition to titles, you should at once take it as a case 
of sour grapes. He simply makes a virtue of ne- 
cessity. Knowing that there is no hope for him 
ever to be decorated or to wear the order of the 
Golden Eagle, his envy denies it to anyone else. 

Again, the envious social rivalries displayed, 
not only in the largest cities, but in the smallest 
hamlets throughout the length and breadth of the 
land, show the spirit of the aristocracy and the 
nobility and how absurd the attempts to level 
mankind; for democracy is a transparent fraud, 
an ignis fatuus, "the school-boy's tale, the wonder 
of an hour." 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 153 

As we have already observed, social distinctions 
being natural, no laws can alter them. And, while 
we condemn the monarchical nations of Europe 
for their established nobility and privileged 
classes ; while we ridicule royalty and sneer at the 
nobility; and while we boast of our Republican 
equality and simplicity, we practically have un- 
written laws that approve a policy of social dis- 
tinction just as odious to the common herd. 

Our highest order of nobility, known as the Four 
Hundred, reside in Gotham. It is the multi-mil- 
lionaire set. Great wealth is the prerequisite to 
membership in that most exclusive order. And, 
while many of them may pride themselves on their 
illustrious lineage and boast of their blue blood, 
blue blood no more than red blood will secure one 
an entree into the sacred portals of the Four Hun- 
dred, unless it be accompanied by millions for 
lavish entertainments and display. All precau- 
tions are used to secure that sacred order against 
the contamination of poverty. A list is kept of all 
those entitled to its privileges and all others are 
barred from access to its holy precincts. Talents 
and worth count for naught. Heroic and honor- 
able services in war, eminence in the political 
councils of the country, or all the graces of mind 
and heart are of no avail to secure entree into the 
Four Hundred. 

Many extravagant tales have been told of the 
famous Four Hundred. And, whether those tales 
are all true or not, whether they are pure fic- 
tion or the exaggerations and embellishments of 
fancy, they have made a profound impression on 
the American people. For they see in their midst 
an order of men of fabulous wealth wrung from 



154 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

labor dissipating millions in royal entertainments, 
while thousands of their countrymen suffer in 
want and misery. While the praises of the Four 
Hundred are sung as though they were the gal- 
lant Six Hundred that rode into the jaws of death, 
a miserere is chanted for thousands that suffer 
the pangs of famine in a land of plenty. 

Yet, if a voice of protest is raised against this 
extravagance and folly, if measures are proposed 
to curb this power that has plundered the Amer- 
ican people, immediately a howl goes up from 
the special interests about the disturbance of bus- 
iness. No wonder that when such extravagance is 
witnessed the indignation of the people is aroused 
and that socialism is gaining ground so rapidly. 

There are, also, other orders of nobility in 
Amercia. While the Four Hundred are the high- 
est order, yet, as stars differ in magnitude, so 
there are lesser luminaries in the social firma- 
ment. And, while not so numerous as the heavenly 
orbits, yet, -not only every city, but every town 
and almost every village has its social lights 
called the Four Hundred. While these lesser 
orders of nobility are not quite so exclusive as 
New York's Four Hundred, yet money is a lever 
of mighty power and essential to the gratification 
of social ambition. The leaders of society are 
generally people of ample means. Many persons 
not of the best moral character or very high 
intellectually, who, in fact, have nothing in the 
world to commend them to the favor and graces 
of their fellowmen, are received with open arms 
by the social set, solely because of their wealth. 
On the other hand, there are many people of 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 155 

ability and worth who, solely by reason of their 
poverty, are excluded from it and under its ban. 

It is, however, claimed that the great masses of 
the American people are plain and their manners 
simple and democratic and that the conduct of 
a comparatively few should not be taken as a 
criterion to judge the whole ; that royalty and 
nobility are odious to them and that they hate the 
aristocracy. 

The love of pomp and power, however, is a part 
of human nature. Most men aspire to preemi- 
nence, seek lofty positions and fame and crave the 
praise and applause of their fellow countrymen. 
They do not in reality condemn the privileged 
classes, they do not in reality hate aristocracy, 
but, as noted before, they envy them. There is 
something fascinating about royal titles and glit- 
tering coronets that, not only appeals to their 
curiosity, but excites their envy; and it is the fact 
that they cannot reach the coveted honors that 
arouses their wrath and indignation against the 
privileged classes. 

" Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a slave, 
Is emulation — in the learned or brave." 

— Pope. 

The fact that it is envy has been demonstrated 
time and again in our country 's history. The ple- 
beian of to-day is the patrician of to-morrow. 
What he affects to spurn at this moment, in an 
hour he will admire. 

" Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

— Pope. 



156 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

So it is with the great masses of the people in 
regard to aristocracy. They hate it at first, but 
when they have become better acquainted with it 
they embrace it and "grapple it to their bosoms 
with hooks of steel. ' ' 

The rise of the great money power in America 
is replete with examples illustrating the magic 
influence and metamorphosing effect of the Al- 
mighty Dollar. The bare history, without any of 
the embellishments of fiction, of the meteoric ca- 
reers of our great multi-millionaires, are more 
wonderful and romantic than the most marvelous 
tales of the most brilliant writers of fiction. But 
a few short years ago most of those lords of 
wealth were in only moderate circumstances, and 
some of them at least were only common day 
laborers, who had to practice economy and fru- 
gality. As we are all men of like passions, no 
doubt, they envied their more prosperous country- 
men; no doubt, they, too, professed a hatred of 
the aristocracy and the privileged classes. But, 
presto, what a wonderful change is wrought in the 
character of these men ! Their very nature seems 
to have undergone a revolution. Once the bitter 
foes of aristocracy they are now its ardent friends 
and champions. Once affecting to despise all titles 
and trappings of royalty, they now aspire to regal 
honors. Their daughters are betrothed to scions 
of nobility and marital alliances are formed with 
the princes and royalty of Europe. In their pov- 
erty they despised all titles, but in their triumph 
over adversity and the heydey of their prosperity 
the glitter of royalty dazzles them. And, though 
those matrimonial alliances are seldom happy 
ones, for, 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 157 

As we all know, 

Dukes seek but " dough," 

the traffic flourishes unabated and the daughters 
of our millionaires are shamefully sold for titles 
in a foreign market. It is said that the foreigner 
loves nobility and the Englishman loves a lord. 
The American people, professing to hate a lord, 
by their very actions belie the claim. 

The American press caters to public opinion. 
It publishes the news most eagerly devoured by its 
readers. Let a foreign prince visit our shores, and 
every action and movement of that prince to the 
minutest details is flashed over the wires. Even 
the sanctity of his private affairs is invaded to 
the innermost recesses and all the details are her- 
alded broadcast over the country to satisfy the 
avidity of the common herd. Wherever he goes 
multitudes follow him, nor can he escape their 
curious and prying eyes. It can not be contended 
that curiosity alone incites the people to harass 
the footsteps of royalty. And, if they hate the 
regal title and despise the coronet and, if the em- 
blazonry of imperial splendor does not appeal to 
them, why is it that they belie their claim to the 
love of republican simplicity by according to 
royalty so much honor and receiving princes with 
so much applause and acclaim ? The truth is that 
it is in their blood ; it is innate with them, a born 
passion. As previously observed, it is pure envy. 
And, while they profess a hatred of royal titles, 
at the same time they covet them and envy those 
whose fortune it is to possess them. 

The love of titles is not confined to any part of 
our country or to any class of people. There is no 



158 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

place in all this broad land where the people do 
not vie with each other in doing honor to royalty, 
no place where there wonld not be a sharp and 
envions rivalry of the hosts in the lavish enter- 
tainments of noble gnests. For does anyone 
think that those hosts, who themselves have won 
coveted social leadership and distinction, would 
not envy those royal guests whom they deem it so 
high an honor to entertain? While it is the priv- 
ilege of only a few of our countrymen to have the 
honor of entertaining royal visitors, yet there is 
no one, however humble, that would not covet the 
distinction. Therefore, a few should not be con- 
demned for a fault (if it be a fault) that is na- 
tional in its scope and embraces the whole country. 

Wherefore, the mask removed, we find that the 
American people have been masquerading under 
the garb of simplicity; that, while the masses of 
them are plain, yet in their hearts the love of 
honor, even imperial honor, is enshrined; that, 
though the passion may long be dormant, when the 
opportunity is presented, the American citizen 
discards his peasant guise, his human nature as- 
serts itself and he appears in his true light — 
a man, a human being, who loves the applause of 
men, who seeks exalted station, honor and fame. 

It is evident that the Nation has declined in its 
democracy since the early days of the Republic. 
It is no longer the bucolic Republic of Washington 
and Jefferson. While politicians affect simplicity 
to gain the favor of the multitude, extreme ex- 
clusiveness reigns supreme in all social functions 
of State. In all those functions royalty is aped; 
there is a brilliant display of rich costumes, gold- 
braid, and glittering gems in imitation of the 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 159 

courts of Europe. Abroad our ambassadors live in 
regal state and support a luxurious establishment ; 
so that only millionaires can represent this coun- 
try at the courts of the Great Powers. To show 
the luxury that prevails in our foreign embassies, 
it is related, that when our ambassador at the 
Court of St. James was called upon at the time of 
his first arrival in England to name the members 
of his official staff and household, who would be 
exempt from arrest, he returned eighty-three 
names. The British officials were astounded, for 
no ambassador had ever before brought into Eng- 
land such a regal entourage. Eeaders, what do 
you think of this for democratic simplicity? 
Think of it! British officials astounded at the 
regal entourage of our ambassador ! 

To show how monarchical manners and customs 
have come into vogue in this country, we cite this 
example on the occasion of the recent visit of the 
Duke of Connaught to the Metropolis: "All day 
long fashionable equipages filled Fifth Avenue, 
dropping miladi at her hair dressers, while mi- 
ladi's private secretary, accompanied by a private 
detective, went to the safe deposit vaults to get the 
rare diamonds and pearls that will deck her cor- 
sage at the feast to royalty. ' ' It was declared that 
the rarest collection of gems ever seen in New 
York was to be exhibited; that, to hold back the 
crowd of curiosity seekers, Commissioner Waldo 
ordered a large squad of policemen to duty 
around Ambassador Reid's house. It was also 
declared that Ambassador Eeid "commanded 
only Two Hundred to appear at the feast of honor 
of the Duke. ' ' What a splendid example of demo- 
cratic simplicity is here presented! How Amer- 



160 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

icans, and especially the Two Hundred, hate 
royalty ! We presume that this snub will have the 
effect of increasing the enmity of the other un- 
fortunate Two Hundred and the rest of the Amer- 
ican people, who were so unceremoniously ex- 
cluded from so magnificent and princely a social 
function. 

Now, in view of the fact that, though our Con- 
stitution and laws do not recognize a nobility or 
privileged classes, in spite of them and in defi- 
ance of them, they, nevertheless, exist, the ques- 
tion is evolved and presents itself whether it 
would not be wiser to amend the Constitution and 
to abrogate those provisions of the laws that 
equalize the people and to institute a nobility 
based on merit. Then the exact status of each in- 
dividual would be known. Much envious social 
rivalry would be avoided and there would be few 
dispiites about social precedence. For each one's 
rank would be determined by law. 

If we must have a nobility, the British system, 
it seems, should be preferred.- The English no- 
bility has been subjected to much abuse and 
calumny. It has been grossly misrepresented. 
The vices of a few have brought reproach on the 
whole royal establishment. Yet all the orders of 
that nobility are founded on merit. And, while 
it is true that the hereditary feature of it may ap- 
pear faulty, yet in talents, in virtue, in patriotism 
and in all the other noble attributes of mind and 
heart they will compare favorably with any other 
nobility and are much superior to our Four Hun- 
dred. That noble institution has encouraged 
talents and rewarded merit. Only by dint of 
honorable and meritorious services can one secure 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 161 

entree to those noble orders. It lias produced a 
long line of illustrious men. England can point 
with pride to the noble men in her brilliant galaxy 
of great and illustrious characters, the immortals 
in her Hall of Fame. There are Sir Isaac New- 
ton, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Edmund Burke, Lord 
Chatham, Lord Brougham, the Duke of Welling- 
ton, Sir Alfred Tennyson and a host of others 
whose sublime talents and virtues shed immortal 
lustre on the British name. 

Now, we are not advocating the constitutional 
and legal recognition of an aristocracy or patri- 
cian class of any character, much less an idle and 
profligate nobility. But we have sought to disil- 
lusion our countrymen of the false conception that 
they are in the enjoyment of political and social 
equality. We have raised the veil from plutoc- 
racy, masquerading as democracy, and shown it in 
its most revolting character. 



162 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Demockacy Condemned in Its Own House. — 
Chakges and Counter-charges of the Two 
Great Political Parties in Evidence. — Tes- 
timony of the Public Press to this Effect. 

Were the opposition to democracy confined to 
its enemies exclusively, then less weight should 
have to be given to the arguments that have 
been advanced against popular government. But, 
unfortunately for it, democracy is condemned 
not so much by aristocrats and monarchists as 
by its own advocates. Democrats themselves 
charge that the Republicans bought the Presi- 
dency and counter-charges of corruption and in- 
timidation are indulged in by the Republicans 
against the Democrats, which but serve to corrob- 
orate the contention of aristocrats and monarch- 
ists that democracy is of "such stuff as dreams 
are made of. ' ' The author himself, in his caustic 
criticisms of our corrupt political conditions, but 
expresses the sentiments of many thousands of 
honest citizens, who do not approve the fraudulent 
political methods that prevail and who deeply de- 
plore the decline of political virtue and our pol- 
luted politics. 

On October 16, 1911, two hundred progressive 
Republicans in their first national conference met 
in Chicago, at which the following resolutions 



DELUSIONS OF. DEMOCRACY. 163 

were adopted: "The progressive movement is a 
struggle to wrest the control of the Government 
in the Nation and States from the representa- 
tives of special privilege and restore it to the con- 
trol of the people. The issue is the same in all 
the States, though the problem may be presented 
in different ways. ' ' 

"In the National field, the control of govern- 
ment by special privilege is evidenced by the in- 
fluence and power of the reactionary leaders in 
both parties in checking or preventing the enact- 
ment of progressive policies pledged by the Re- 
publican party." 

On October 3, 1911, we find this language in 
an editorial of the Louisville, Kentucky, Daily 
Evening Post: The people intend to re-take, to 
regain, to reassume control of government so long- 
usurped by party machines, by privileged classes, 
by organized interests. 

In the past both (the Republican party and the 
Democratic party) have betrayed the people, sold 
out to the interests and been false to the principles 
of a self-government. ' ' 

These are two examples in which advocates of 
popular government acknowledge that it has 
proved a failure. Hundreds of other resolutions 
of like or similar tenor could be cited. It is not 
necessary, however, to dilate further on this phase 
of the subject, as not only is ample proof here 
furnished, but in other parts of this work the tes- 
timony is incontestable. 



164 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Failure of Justice in the United States. 
It Is Bought With Money. — Profanation 
of Its Holy Temple. — The Crowning Shame 
of the Republic. — The Horrible Record of 
Crimes. — The Inglorious Failure of a Vital 
Principle of Good Government. 

It has already been shown in this volume that 
it is impossible to convict the corporations and 
trusts of violations of the laws ; that men of great 
wealth are practically immune from criminal 
prosecutions. Corruption permeates our whole ju- 
dicial system. In both civil and criminal cases 
m many instances at least money turns the scales 
of justice and the ermine is. trailed in the mire 
of avarice or political pollution. For the poor 
man the inscription of Dante's Inferno should be 
blazoned on the portals of all our august trib- 
unals, "Abandon hope, all ye that enter here." 
Futile and in vain is the attempt of the poor, 
though worthy, man to secure justice against the 
combined powers of wealth, influence, corrupt 
judges and debauched juries. The boasted equal- 
ity of all citizens before the law is a fiction and a 
myth. Though a man has committed a cold- 
blooded and brutal murder, yet, if he is blessed 
with ample means, he will go scot-free and the 
only redress that his family has is the vengeance 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 165 

of a just and righteous God. This has been exem- 
plified in hundreds of instances and is known of all 
men. No wonder, then, that with venal courts and 
venal juries crime is so rampant in this country 
and the administration of justice is to so great an 
extent a farce. No wonder, either, that of all civ- 
ilized nations of the world the criminal record of 
this country is the most unenviable and the most 
monstrous. The record of crimes in Great Brit- 
ain shows that in one year only five hundred mur- 
ders were committed, whereas, in this country, 
with but twice the population, ten thousand were 
perpetrated during the same period; or, in other 
words, ten times as much crime is committed in 
this land as in the mother country. But in Great 
Britain justice can not be bought and the noble 
and the commoner stand on an equal footing be- 
fore the law. Instead of celebrating the "Glor- 
ious Fourth, ' ' it should be a day of mourning and 
we should repent in sackcloth and ashes, lament- 
ing the unhappy hour we separated from glorious 
England. For in celebrating our natal day we 
rejoice only in our degradation and slavery. For 
an insignificant tax, we broke the bonds that con- 
nected us with the mother country; but we now 
tamely submit to the tribute of a hundred trusts a 
million times more burdensome and humiliating. 

As the administration of justice is one of the 
most important functions of government and, as 
we have witnessed the crowning shame of its pros- 
titution to cupidity and to political infamy, we 
are constrained to conclude that democracy itself 
in oue cardinal principle to a great extent has 
failed. 



166 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY 



CHAPTER XXI. 

The New Demockacy of the Day. — The Doc- 
trines of the Latter Day Political Saints. 
— The Initiative, Referendum and Recall. 

The most unstinted praise has been bestowed on 
the Constitution of the United States. Gladstone 
said it was "the greatest work ever struck ofT at a 
given time by the brain and purpose of man. ' ' It 
is generally regarded by the advocates of democ- 
racy as a most sacred instrument embodying the 
highest political wisdom and as the bulwark of 
our liberties. 

Yet the advocates of popular government, who 
have so extolled the Constitution, are the most 
vociferous in clamoring for the election of Sen- 
ators by the people and thus impugn the wisdom 
of its framers. The designers of that instrument 
conceived that a few men wise enough to make 
laws were more competent to choose Senators 
than the turbulent multitude. They also were of 
the opinion that the legislatures of the several 
States were better qualified to express a choice 
for Presidential electors than the people at large. 
In their judgment, too, Presidential electors were 
more competent to select a President than the 
popular voice. But the College of Electors has 
long since ceased to be more than a shadow and 
simply records the decrees of the people. With 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 167 

them there is no consultation, no deliberation, no 
exercise of judgment or discrimination as intend- 
ed by the framers of the Constitution, no choice 
on their part, but the merely perfunctory duty of 
proclaiming the verdict of the people as expressed 
at the polls. 

Thus early in the history of the country there 
was a radical departure from the spirit of the 
Constitution in choosing a President; mutual dis- 
trust was manifested, the Constitution manacling 
the people, who would not suffer its salutary re- 
straints. 

The people are to-day clamoring for the elec- 
tion of Senators by direct popular vote. This 
very fact is a confession on their part of the fail- 
ure of democracy. For they virtually say: 
"Though we choose the legislatures, we cannot 
trust them in the important function of electing 
Senators. For they are corrupt and will barter 
away a Senator ship for a bribe. My God ! what a 
reproach to popular government ! Never was the 
weakness of democracy more clearly exposed. In- 
competent to elect honest and capable men to the 
legislature, they demand that the election of Sen- 
ators be put in the same incompetent hands. 
Would not the Senators elected by them be their 
creatures as much as the members of the legisla- 
tures 1 By what species of logic are they suddenly 
transformed from unqualified to qualified electors ? 
Shades of our ancestors! Away with such mis- 
erable subterfuges and evasions ! Why not frankly 
acknowledge the truth and confess that popular 
government is a failure? The election of Sena- 
tors by popular vote will not secure the people 
from bribery and corruption or the election of 



168 DE-LUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

their choices for Senators. The same power that 
can corrupt legislatures, rest assured, will be able 
to corrupt the people too. 

It is, however, claimed that it is harder to buy 
the people than a few members of a legislature. 
Well, that depends on the character of the legis- 
lature and the character of the people. If the leg- 
islature is corrupt, then back of it is a corrupt 
people. While it is true that it costs the money 
power more to buy up a whole people than a few 
legislators, yet a Senator is cheap to them at any 
price. Anyhow the people foot the bill. For 
before you know it up will go oil, steel or some 
other commodity and the tribute of the people is 
increased. 

Revelations of astounding venality in American 
politics have recently been made. It has long been 
known that elections were bought; but that bri- 
bery existed on so extensive a scale as disclosed in 
Adams County, Ohio, recently, where nearly half 
the citizens of the county had sold their votes, was 
hardly credible. But this revelation of whole- 
sale bribery has opened the eyes of the American 
people to the astounding conditions of corruption 
that pervade the entire country. Adams County 
is, perhaps, no worse than hundreds of other coun- 
ties in the Union, though they have not attained 
the unenviable fame of that debauched county. 
There is hardly a county in the whole country 
where votes sufficient to turn the scales of an elec- 
tion cannot be brought. 

Now, even if Senators are chosen by popular 
vote, to buy the election it is not necessary to pur- 
chase the whole people. As the contests are gen- 
erally pretty close, the change of a few hundred or 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 169 

at most a few thousand votes will do the work. 
For, no doubt, there are thousands of votes for 
sale in every State, enough to determine the elec- 
tion in every political contest. 

But a legislature that is not qualified to elect 
United States Senators is certainly not competent 
to make our laws. What, then, will the people do I 
Will they abolish the legislatures? No; the legis- 
lature is an essential feature of democracy and of 
all other constitutional governments. In our re- 
public, however, the people in clamoring for the 
direct election of Senators, as we have already ob- 
served, have in effect proclaimed to the world the 
failure of democracy. They now seek to bolster 
up a waning cause by the adoption of populistic 
theories and miserable expedients to curb the 
power of their own corrupt creatures. Verily the 
people are the " greatest architects of destruction 
the world ever saw. ' ' Acknowledging the corrup- 
tion of their legislatures and their failure to rep- 
resent them, they now invoke the initiative, refer- 
endum and recall to save the remnant — if there 
is a remnant — of democracy from destruction. 

In a speech before the Kentucky State Bar As- 
sociation recently on the subject of the election 
of United States Senators by the people, a certain 
distinguished judge severely condemned the pol- 
icy of direct election of Senators. In a sarcastic 
vein he bitterly opposed the contemplated change 
in the manner of electing those Senators. He as- 
serted that a new set of philosophers had arisen in 
the land, who saw a new light, "new charmers who 
keep serpents;" that times had changed and the 
conditions that called for the original Constitu- 
tion no longer obtained; that the people of the 



170 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

American States were no longer afflicted with the 
errors and failings which had oppressed mankind 
since the world began. They are the chosen of 
the Lord and cannot err. They have superior in- 
tellect, trained, refined, made subtile by reading 
the newspapers. They are conversant with public 
affairs and have a perfect acquaintance with the 
principles of politics, of government and state- 
craft. They have developed self-control and self- 
constraint until every act is the dictate of calm 
and mature judgment. They are free from party 
spirit and faction, and incapable of either. Pa- 
triotism and public spirit are the mainsprings of 
their lives. They do not know combinations and 
leagues founded upon motives of personal gain. 
They have the perception to discover the tricks 
and beguilements of deceptive adventurers. They 
have repudiated the politicians and will have 
nothing of them. Every act of each individual is 
honest and sincere and infallibly just. We are the 
people and we know. Did not, have not always the 
chosen people of the Lord " erred and strayed 
from His ways like sheep!" Have they not de- 
serted their standards, abandoned the right? 
Been misled by false teachers? Been panic- 
stricken, uncertain and shifty in policy? Finical, 
arbitrary and unstable ? Have they not, over and 
over seen the error of their way, thrown ashes 
upon their heads, clothed themselves in sackcloth, 
and then with the tears of repentance on their 
cheeks and wailings in their throats, followed the 
next pied piper to the next golden calf or the 
brazen serpent? Would the Israelites have had 
prophets if they had not been of that nature? 
Have not all people been of that kind? And will 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 171 

they not always be so ? Have the people been able 
to judge a leader till he is dead? Have not they 
always sacrificed the true public spirit and fol- 
lowed false gods? Was there ever a people com- 
posed of all like Ulysses with strength to tie them- 
selves to the mast to keep them from yielding to 
their impulses? Was there ever a people who 
could steer a course between Scylla and Charyb- 
dis? Was there ever a people who did not have 
passions and emotions, prejudices and affections 
which could be played upon to make them drunk? 
Was there ever a mariner who might not be lured 
to the rocks by the sight of the maiden combing 
her yellow hair and crooning her seductive song? 
We are the people and we know. We will turn to 
the golden calf when Moses is on the mountain ; we 
believe that the golden serpent will cure our ills ; 
the apple still has its flavor. Will not our very 
zeal and devotion cause us to reach out to stay the 
Ark of the Covenant? Was not public opinion 
worked upon to destroy Saul for the benefit of the 
ruddy youth? Do not cabals and intrigues exist 
among us? Do we not oppress the good and tor- 
ture the virtuous? Are we not Jacobs supplant- 
ing Esaus? Will not we go to war for Helen? Do 
not our Sampsons forfeit one vow while keeping 
another? Baal is the one god and great is Diana 
of the Ephesians! Does our Hercules always 
choose the noble and heroic? Are we not blinded 
by beauty and dazzled by glitter? Do not the 
pinch of want and despair, the wrench of disap- 
pointed affection, make us squint? Are we not 
paralyzed by fear, our wills inhibited by envy and 
jealousy, by spite and malice? The old Adam is 
in us yet? Does not David gather into the fast- 



172 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

nesses all the men with a grievance ? And all the 
disaffected on the Scottish border, do they not fol- 
low Lord Buccleuth? Are we not Jacobs and 
Labans still? Did not even Washington swear? 

It is all a vision of the pipe, a dream of Utopia. 
It is not a question of virtne, of character, but of 
inherent vice, of original sin. Pure democracy is 
an ideal always to be striven for, but never prac- 
tical in our American States, an impossibility. 
Our government is designed to protect us against 
those weaknesses in human constitution which it 
would be foolhardy not to recognize and provide 
against. ' ' 

Yet this same speaker goes on to say that the 
people are the source of all power and all govern- 
ment must rest upon their sanction. He insists 
that all great political principles and policies must 
be settled ultimately by them. It is admitted that 
there must be a curb on their power, but that their 
matured judgment, virtue and patriotism must be 
the final arbiter in determining all great funda- 
mental problems of state. This is the argument 
of all the advocates of democracy. Admitting most 
of the evils of it and its flagrant abuse of power, 
they still repose sublime faith in the final and 
infallible judgment of the people. 

Now this argument is most unsound and falla- 
cious. Let us dissect it. In the first place, no one 
knows what the final judgment of the people is 
going to be. Take the question of slavery. It 
was not settled by the sober judgment of the 
American people. It required a sanguinary war 
to determine it. The question had been agitated 
for many years. If it was determined by the sober 
and matured judgment of the people, how long 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 173 

were they In reaching that judgment? It had been 
discussed for forty years before the War. Now, 
what people finally settled it? Most of the peo- 
ple who had studied it so long and had come to a 
mature judgment respecting it were old men and 
were in a hopeless minority. Many others had 
passed off the stage of action. It was left, then, 
to the judgment of others comparatively young to 
determine. And this is the final judgment of the 
people, which is infallible. Warren Hastings 
justly complained that he had been tried in one 
generation and that the next generation was to 
pass judgment on -him. So it is that the people 
determine great political questions. The ques- 
tions such as slavery and the like are discussed in 
one generation and settled in the next. 

The people, however, did not determine the 
slavery question. When Lincoln was elected Presi- 
dent an overwhelming majority of the American 
people were opposed to emancipation. Douglas 
and Breckenridge, the two Democratic candidates 
for President, combined had a great popular ma- 
jority over Lincoln. In spite of that majority, 
however, it was settled and settled right. But it 
was not determined by the sober, matured judg- 
ment of the American people. For their judgment 
at that time was certainly not sober. It was set- 
tled in passion and in blood. Even when Lincoln 
was re-elected, could the South have had a voice in 
the election, a great majority of the people would 
have opposed his policies. Therefore, it is plain 
that it was not the final, sober and matured judg- 
ment of the American people that settled the ques- 
tion of African slavery. 

Again, what signifies the sober, matured judg- 



174 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

ment of the people, if they are intensely ignorant 
on all great pnblic questions? They may be as 
sober as a judge and think and ponder till dooms- 
day, and yet are unable to pass intelligent judg- 
ment on them. 

But with the people there is no such thing as 
sober, matured judgment. Passions and preju- 
dices cling to them and follow them fo their 
graves. The solid South is an example of deep- 
seated political prejudice. No one can contend 
that the tariff or any other important political 
question can be considered on its merits when so 
much political prejudice warps the judgment of 
the people. 

Moreover, if it should be granted that the peo- 
ple do in the course of a long time come to their 
senses and that their final conclusions are just and 
right, does it not stand to reason that a smaller 
body of citizens far more intelligent, far more 
conversant with public affairs and much more vir- 
tuous would reach the same conclusions in a much 
shorter time 1 Why, then, let ignorance deliberate 
when intelligence can decide? 

We contend that the people do not determine 
any great political questions. We have already 
shown that they did not settle the slavery question. 
They did not settle the free silver issue. Many 
claim that gold in the hands of Mark Hanna set- 
tled it. The golden stream, however, that flowed 
from Alaska probably eliminated it as an issue. 
They have not determined the tariff question, 
though it has been a political issue for about a 
hundred years. Perhaps, in the course of a thou- 
and years, if the people shall rule so long, their 
sober, matured judgment will settle that intricate 
question and they will have the leisure then to 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 175 

consider the more important issues of woman suf- 
frage and national prohibition. 

If the people can be relied on to determine right 
all grave political problems, why has the tariff 
been so long held in abeyance 1 Over eighty years 
ago it gave rise to acrimonious controversy and 
aroused sectional animosity. Clay by his tariff 
compromise allayed the ill-feeling for a time, but 
it continued a vital issue, often arousing the pas- 
sions of the Southern people. During the admin- 
istration of Polk the Walker tariff was passed, 
and for a long time the country enjoyed unex- 
ampled prosperity. The tariff question, mean- 
while, lay dormant and there was no disposition 
to revive it. But business depression followed 
under the administration of Buchanan (panics are 
periodical and occur under low tariffs and high 
tariffs alike from internal or extraneous causes or 
from both), the War soon followed, duties had to 
be raised to defray its expenses, and so the tariff 
again became a burning issue and has been an is- 
sue ever since. . Though it has been over forty 
years since the conflict between the States, 
some of those war duties still remain and an im- 
mense pension burden to a great extent furnishes 
an apology for it. But the people have not yet 
finally decided on the merits of the tariff. If in 
one election they decide for a low tariff, at the 
next they reverse themselves, and nobody knows 
when it is settled or when it will be or whether it 
will ever be settled. 

As shown in another part of this volume, only 
about ten years ago the people denounced the 
political principles of Bryan as hysterical and an- 
archical. Yet to-day most of them are sanctioned 
by both the great political parties, at least they 



176 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

declared for them in their national platforms. 
Who knows how soon they may again reverse 
themselves and denounce and deplore the vision- 
ary and abhorrent principles of the Prince of 
Orators? 

Says an advocate of democracy, " there are 
functions in government which the people cannot 
perform, questions which they cannot solve, pro- 
cedure which they cannot follow, but some ques- 
tions of fundamental policy are of such moment 
that only the people can decide them. Now, if the, 
people are incapable of determining questions of 
minor moment, how can they decide questions of 
supreme importance? As a matter of fact few of 
them give much attention to either minor or fun- 
damental political principles. Even were they 
capable of deciding them, they are too much en- 
grossed in private and business pursuits to devote 
the requisite attention to grave political problems, 
the proper solution of which requires deep study 
and deliberation. Politicians and statesmen alone 
have the time to devote to statecraft, except it be a 
comparatively few others whose leisure affords 
them the opportunity to study politics. The great 
masses of the people, except on special occasions, 
manifest little interest in political affairs. There 
is one great leader, however, that they frequently 
follow — General Apathy. Even when political 
questions of supreme moment are involved, the 
great and predominant problem of the politi- 
cians is the most effective way to bring out the 
vote. The people, who are the final and ultimate 
authority on all great Questions of state, must be 
vehemently incited and implored to assert that 
authority. The great judges and arbiters of all 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 177 

political problems are too modest and unassuming 
to claim their sovereign power. In fact many 
thousands of them can never be persuaded to do 
so. With the most vigorous, energetic and aggres- 
sive campaigning with brass bands and with 
whiskey and money galore, still thousands and 
sometimes hundreds of thousands fail to exercise 
the elective franchise. Therefore, this theoretical 
sovereign power of the people is often held in 
abeyance, for they refuse to exercise it. Because 
the many thousands who are indifferent and do 
not vote by exercising that right could have turned 
the political scales. But for the time they aban- 
doned the throne and ceased to reign. 

There are many causes to account for this indif- 
ference. One of the principal reasons is that thou- 
sands of pure and patriotic citizens have become 
disgusted with the putrid political conditions that 
prevail. They have learned that all their power 
and influence cannot stay the appalling and abhor- 
rent tide of political pollution that seems to be 
sweeping away the last vestiges of our free insti- 
tutions. Though they revere the name of Wash- 
ington and cherish the sainted memory of the first 
martyr President, seeing that all their efforts are 
impotent to save the country, they refrain from 
participating in politics, thinking that it would 
serve only to contaminate themselves without 
being of any service to the country. Again, others 
see no use in taking part in politics, as it does not 
appeal to their interests. They have a hard time, 
anyhow, and have so often been deceived by the 
politicians that they have lost faith in them and 
view with indifference all political contentions and 
turmoil. 



178 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

Thus, while thousands of good citizens refuse to 
exercise the elective franchise, the corrupt ele- 
ments always avail themselves of that privilege 
and of the opportunity it affords them to sell their 
votes. 

Such, then, is the character of the electorate, the 
sovereign authority that must pass solemn judg- 
ment on all political questions, the great and ulti- 
mate court to decide all fundamental political 
problems. One would imagine that that court 
would be composed exclusively of men of high 
character and standing, thoroughly versed in the 
Constitution and laws, oracles of wisdom, who 
could explain all the intricacies and mysteries of 
all grave political problems and enlighten and 
illumine the understandings of men. But, lo and 
behold! that great tribunal is the people them- 
selves. If they seek light, they must seek it of 
themselves. They are the beacon light, the pillar 
of fire by night to guide the statesmen through 
the political wilderness. What need have we of 
political leaders or statesmen, if the people 
possess all wisdom? They are mere marionettes, 
puppets. The people pull the strings and they 
perform their antics. 

To sum up, the court of last resort is composed 
of various elements, a piece of mosaic roughly 
dovetailed, a heterogeneous collection of individ- 
uals of different degrees of capacity and incapac- 
ity, of purity and debauchery, and of conflicting 
interests and ambitions, most of them inspired 
in nearly all their political actions by partisan 
prejudice, deeply ingrained in their nature and 
strengthened by their associations and environ- 
ments ; a collection of citizens of various tempera- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 179 

ments, many impulsive and impetuous, deciding 
matters on the spur of the moment and repenting 
at leisure; many others subject to selfish and 
sinister influences, ignoble and corrupt, and the 
vast majority of them ignorant not only on all 
great fundamental political questions, but on 
other political problems of minor moment. 

We, therefore, submit to our readers that such 
a court is not the proper tribunal to decide mo- 
mentous political questions that require wisdom, 
virtue and deliberation, instead of incapacity, im- 
petuosity and vice, to solve them ; that it is an il- 
lusion to suppose that the mob can be a sober 
judge; that it is equally illusory to think that 
when they sit in judgment on political problems 
that most of them are not influenced by a few men, 
and that, after all, the boasted sovereignty of the 
people is but an idle dream. 

Says Senator Owens, in advocating the election 
of Senators by popular vote, " It is a long and sub- 
stantial step toward making democratic the Con- 
stitution. Restoring the active right of recall of 
judges will go far toward making democratic the 
Constitution. ' ' Thus it is admitted on democratic 
authority that the Constitution is not democratic. 
Unbridled democracy, then, is the panacea pro- 
posed for all our political ills. Yet the history of 
the world proves that the greatest of all tyrannies 
is that of the mob, the dire effects of which have 
been witnessed in all governments responsive to 
the vagaries, caprices and passions of the unre- 
strained multitude. This, however, is the modern 
doctrine of democracy recently promulgated, 
so ardently advocated and so popular with the 
people. It would strike down all the safeguards 



180 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

of the rights of the minority ; it would remove the 
restrictions imposed on the power of the majority 
and leave them to the tender mercies of the mob. 
Such monstrous doctrines, professed by men who 
call themselves statesmen, put into effect and car- 
ried to their logical conclusions, would produce a 
despotism more pernicious and galling than the 
worst form of military tyranny. 

Sir Henry Maine, a great English political phil- 
osopher and author, certainly possessed a pro- 
phetic vision and made a wise political forecast. 
Many of his predictions are being fulfilled at this 
time. About a quarter of a century ago, in criti- 
cising democracy, he predicted that, as democracy 
grew, the people would more and more seek to 
bridle and control their representatives. The 
trend of political events is rapidly vindicating the 
judgment of that great political sage. The ablest 
advocates of democracy have always contended 
that the people were not always inconstant, but at 
times they would follow great leaders with un- 
wavering loyalty. Such was the contention of the 
famous historian, George Grote, who instituted a 
comparison of the ancient Greek democracies and 
Switzerland. Being an advocate of democracy, he 
exhausted all the resources at his command to 
sustain his views. But he at once saw the weakness 
of the initiative, referendum and recall that pre- 
vailed in the Helvetic republic and, likewise, the 
weakness of his own argument ; for it was his pur- 
pose to prove that in a republic the citizens would 
follow great leaders. But in Switzerland the peo- 
ple did not follow any leaders at all, but made all 
the would-be leaders and statesmen follow them. 

The plebiscite, or referendum, was resorted to 
by Napoleon III. in France to sustain his power 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 181 

in 1857. The people by their votes abolished all 
the republican forms and sustained the authority 
of the Citizen King. But the plebiscite was soon 
abolished, or, in other words, universal suffrage 
was no longer to be tolerated even in republican 
France. 

If it is a wise policy, why is universal suffrage 
not adopted by all the great nations of the world! 
Why was it rejected in republican France? Why 
is democratic doctrine repudiated by its own 
friends? Because it has everywhere proved so 
ignominious a failure that even republics reject it. 

Yet in the last few years the policy of the initia- 
tive, referendum and recall has become a great and 
popular political fad in our country. The people 
are clamoring more and more for a real and po- 
tent voice in the government, their representatives 
to carry out their will as expressed not only at the 
regular elections, but at the special elections under 
the auspices of the initiative, referendum and re- 
call. Thus the representatives are to be shorn of 
their legislative powers. We are to have no great 
leaders or statesmen for they must all yield their 
judgment to the opinion of the multitude, whose 
views must be enacted into laws. The ultimate and 
inevitable effect of such a system must be to reduce 
the administration of government to the dead level 
of commonplace public opinion and to a low order 
of intelligence. According to Hobb's theory, 
"democracy is power divided into fragments," as 
we see here illustrated, and which bodes no good 
to popular government. 

For democracy to be successful the representa- 
tives must be men of high character, ability, judg- 
ment and independence. They must be firm in 



182 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

their political convictions and men whose actions 
inspire the people with confidence in them and 
whom they follow with loyal devotion. Burke thus 
aptly describes a true representative of the peo- 
ple : " A representative worthy of you, ought to be 
a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your 
opinions ; but to such opinions as you and I must 
have iive years hence. I was not to look to the 
flash of the day. I knew you chose me, in my place, 
along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and 
not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted 
for my levity and versatility, and of no use but 
to indicate the shifting of every fashionable 
breeze. ' ' 

This definition of a true representative of the 
people is not, however, in harmony with the teach- 
ings of modern democracy, which make the people 
the fountain of all political wisdom and power. 
Democracy having miserably failed under the Con- 
stitution, it is proposed to amend that instrument 
so as to give more power to the people. But the 
trouble is that the government has already suf- 
fered from too much democracy, and to inflict it 
with more democracy would serve only to aggra- 
vate the trouble. Though elections are already 
too frequent, it is proposed by the initiative, 
referendum and recall to make them more so. 
The country would thus be kept in a constant state 
of political agitation and turmoil, as elections 
would be perennial. 

Of all the provisions of the Constitution that 
creating an independent judiciary is the best. Life 
tenure of office has rendered the Federal judges 
far more free from partisan bias and much more 
independent than any other judges. The most 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY. 183 

commendable feature, then, of the Constitution is 
the judicial system, though it is the furtherest 
moved from democracy. Yet the recall proposes 
to eleminate this provision sanctioned by the ex- 
perience of over a hundred years and, instead of 
the erudite, sober, fair, deliberate and independent 
judicial opinions of an august and impartial trib- 
unal, to substitute the voice of the rabble. Though 
even now judicial decisions are too often colored 
by partisan prejudice, yet the recall proposes to 
make judges still more subservient to the people. 
In all their judicial investigations, deliberations 
and judgments the recall would be the sword of 
Damocles that would hang over their heads, 
threatening them with dire political ruin if they 
should not render judgments in conformity with 
the opinion of the multitude, whose wisdom is 
superior to that of any other mortals. Their de- 
cisions, then, must conform to the opinions of the 
capricious multitude and be warped by partisan 
prejudices and they must be governed, not by the 
Constitution and the laws, but by the views of a 
corrupt and low intelligence. 

' 'The truth, the hope, of any time must be 
sought in the minorities. Michael Angelo was the 
conscience of Italy. We grow free with his name, 
and find it ornamental now, but in his own day his 
friends were few." — Emerson "Seek not the 
favor of the multitude ; it is seldom got by honest 
and lawful means, But seek the testimony of few ; 
and number not voices, but weigh them. ' ' — Kant. 
"The multitude are ruled by prejudices." — Vol- 
taire. 

Yet it is the multitude that must decide all 
judicial as well as all political questions when the 



184 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

recall shall have come into vogue. Deplorable 
nrnst be the consequences of a judicial system 
founded on public opinion. For public opinion 
in all the ages has persecuted the martyrs. It 
was the rabble that cried for the blood of Jesus, 
the Vicarious Victim. For when Pilate was dis- 
posed to release Him, they clamored "Give us 
Barabbas." And in all the ages since that same 
spirit has been manifested. When Bruno was 
burned at the stake, the cry was, "Give us Ba- 
rabbas." When Huss suffered martyrdom, that 
same cry was reiterated. When the flames en- 
veloped the forms of the heroic martyrs of 
Smithfield the cry of the multitude was, "Release 
unto us Barabbas." And even down to this day 
that refrain is heard. Prejudice sways the vulgar 
heart. To so low a plane would justice be re- 
duced, the ermine trailing in the mire of prejudice 
and debauchery. Justice is represented as blind. 
And, "if the blind lead the blind, both will fall 
into the ditch." Surely, if the rabble be allowed 
to frame judicial decisions, our jurisprudence will 
be involved in wild confusion and chaos, justice 
will be extinguished and liberty will be an idle 
tale. 

How preposterous the initiative, referendum 
and recall would prove is shown by the ease with 
which anyone may secure a petition, and this 
facility alone should be a fatal bar to the adoption 
of such a system. It would be the open sesame for 
fraud and corruption. Elections being perennial, 
political debauchery would be perpetual and, in- 
stead of being diminished, would be increased and 
intensified. 

Democracy has now been considered from every 
point of view, from every angle and in every 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 185 

phase. In most of its aspects we have found it 
repulsive and abhorrent, casting all around it far 
and wide its deadly upas shadows, decoying, an- 
noying, withering and destroying. Democracy 
itself is, indeed, a delusion. But the counterfeit 
that passes current as the genuine article, bear- 
ing the image and superscription of liberty, is, 
indeed, a stern realitv. 



186 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

GoVEENMENTAL ReFOBMS ADVOCATED BY THE Au- 
THOE. ReSTBICTION OF THE SuFFEAGE. THE 

Great Electorate. — The Right of Suffeage 
not inheeent oe inalienable. most citi- 
ZENS Taxed Without Repeesentation. 

As universal suffrage has proved a dismal fail- 
ure, popular government a farce and as democ- 
racy has deluded its most ardent devotees, the 
author will now present to his readers his theo- 
ries respecting the elective franchise. 

From the standpoint of abstract right and jus- 
tice, the electorate should be divided into various 
ranks based ou the different qualifications of the 
electors. But, as this is impracticable, two quali- 
fications for citizenship should be prescribed — 
educational and property. Popular government 
founded on universal suffrage is unjust, as it puts 
the worthy and the unworthy on a plane of polit- 
ical equality. The electorate should be purged 
as much as possible. All illiterates should be 
eliminated from it and, in addition, a property 
qualification of at least a thousand dollars should 
be required. This dual test would in a great 
measure ennoble the electorate, rendering it wor- 
thy of dominion and empire. After purging it of 
its venal element we should further elevate it by 
bestowing the suffrage on woman. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 187 

It will, however, be contended by the advo- 
cates of democracy that to deprive so many citi- 
zens of the suffrage would be a pernicious policy 
diametrically opposed to all the fundamental 
principles and traditional policy of the Republic; 
that a majority of the people would be taxed with- 
out representation; that our forefathers had op- 
posed such taxation, and that it was against the 
claim of Great Britain of the right to "bind the 
colonies in all cases whatsoever' ' that they fought 
and won the " Glorious Revolution." 

The claim of taxation without representation 
sounds very plausible and to the simple and un- 
sophisticated is an argument of great weight. To 
shallow, superficial observers, to the great masses 
of the people who do not deeply reflect and whose 
minds are fettered by ancient prejudices, to dis- 
pute the claims of our forebears were abominable 
and sacrilegious. We, however, live in an icono- 
clastic age. Many things that in former and more 
romantic times were regarded without reservation 
and without scruple as real and historic are now 
numbered with the legends and myths of an- 
tiquity. Many beautiful stories conjured up by 
fertile and exuberant imaginations, which ap- 
pealed so strongly to the fancy and affections of 
the American people and to which they clung 
with so long and obdurate a devotion, the enlight- 
enment of recent years has constrained them re- 
luctantly to discard. 

"We know that, as we approach this subject, our 
countrymen will exclaim, "Unloose your sandals: 
the ground on which you tread is holy. ' ' Though 
we know it is a delicate subject and we tread on 
sacred soil, yet, conscious that we are vindicating 



188 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

the truth, we shall not hesitate to assail the an- 
cient and scarred embattlements of fiction, farce 
and falsehood. 

If the right of representation is so important 
and so sacred, why is it that from the very birth 
of the Nation down to the present time a majority 
of the people have been taxed without represen- 
tation? And why the gross inequality of it where 
it does prevail? The millionaire and the pauper 
are placed on an equal footing. As taxation is a 
burden on the property of the citizens, evidently 
the millionaire is not equitably or adequately 
represented. Again, the entire female sex, com- 
prising about half the population of the country, 
is disfranchised, though womanhood is the very 
1 1 crown and flower ' ' of the- Republic. Add to the 
females the thousands of minors whose property 
is taxed, and you see that a vast majority of the 
people are still taxed without representation. 

It will, however, be argued that minors are vir- 
tually represented by their parents. So it was 
contended during the Revolution that the Amer- 
icans were virtually represented in the British 
Parliament. And was it not true? If Americans 
themselves had elected them, they could not have 
chosen more faithful and devoted or as able, elo- 
quent and powerful representatives as Lord Chat- 
ham, Burke, Fox and others, whose eloquent and 
brilliant forensic efforts in behalf of the American 
colonists are ornaments and part of the enduring 
monuments of English literature. 

The Americans had no legal right to resist the 
payment of a small excise tax. It was strictly 
legal and in accord with the British constitution. 
For a time almost immemorial they had borne the 
restrictions of the navigation laws without seri- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 189 

cms complaint and without disputing the right of 
Great Britain to tax them. But simply because 
the tax had assumed the form of a direct impost 
it aroused their indignation and bitter and de- 
termined opposition. Though it was impolitic on 
the part of the mother country to persist in en- 
forcing an odious law against the will of the 
indignant colonists, yet, as to the abstract right 
and constitutional authority to tax them, Great 
Britain was right. During the Revolution even in 
England itself only about one-tenth of the people 
were vested with the elective franchise and repre- 
sented in Parliament. Yet the residue of them 
did not raise the standard of revolt. 

Taxation without representation, however, was 
only the ostensible cause of the Revolution: the 
real motives that instigated it lay deeper, hidden 
and veiled under the pretext of the oppressions of 
the mother country and the glamour of patriot- 
ism, that appealed to the popular imagination. 
While many pure patriots espoused the American 
cause, it would be preposterous to claim that al- 
truism alone inspired the Revolution. No doubt 
many selfish interests, some important, if not de- 
cisive, entered into the contest. 

Recent historical investigations have revealed 
many facts that throw much light on our revolu- 
tionary history and that, likewise, cast many shad- 
ows that dim the halos of some of our great 
national heroes. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis 
folly to be wise, " is a maxim that has been exem- 
plified in the case of our fathers, who remained in 
blissful ignorance of some of the brave delinquen- 
cies of several of the great patriots of 1776. 

We' have been wont to regard all the leading 
patriots of the Revolution as paragons of virtue, 



190 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

as men without reproach and without blemish. 
But, alas! the fond delusion so long cherished 
has been dissipated. How sweet and pleasing it 
was to think of those great patriots as men with 
all the noblest attributes of manhood and of the 
most unsullied honor. And the revelations of 
their turpitude almost break our hearts. But it 
is the duty of the historian faithfully to record 
all important facts. "Uncle lacrirnae," hence 
these tears. * The novelist, or the writer of fiction, 
is licensed to ascribe imaginary virtues to his 
fictitious heroes or heroines; but the historian 
should truthfully and faithfully portray all the 
characters that fall to his lot to delineate. 

According to John H. Stark, the Boston his- 
torian, the friends of Benjamin Franklin were 
shocked to learn that their great ancestor was 
guilty of purloining money while postmaster at 
Boston. On the same authority we learn that 
Samuel Adams, another illustrious patriot of 
1776, when tax collector for Boston, was a de- 
faulter to the amount of ^.ve thousand dollars. 
He was removed from office and his sureties had 
to refund what he stole. 

John Hancock, the boldest signer of the Decla- 
ration of Independence, was, likewise, the boldest 
and cleverest brigand of all the patriots. He was 
elected treasurer of Harvard College in 1774. 
Though seventy-seven thousand dollars were 
turned over to him, some of it clung to his fingers. 
Though the corporation implored him to return 
it and threatened to prosecute him and sued his 
bond, it was all in vain. It was only after his 
death in 1793 that his heirs made restitution. In 
the settlement the college lost five hundred and 
twenty-six dollars interest. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 191 

Now, if the purest patriotism is to be ascribed 
to the conspicuous patriots of 1776, though guilty 
of such turpitude, surely the earnest loyalty of 
the Tories, who were never charged with such 
heinous crimes, ought not to be doubted. The 
Tories, or Loyalists, if they did not, as some con- 
tend, comprise a majority of the colonists, at 
least composed a respectable minority. They 
strenuously opposed the Revolution. Fair and 
impartial history records that these Loyalists 
comprised some of the best and most substantial 
of the colonists. That they were of sterling worth 
and noble character is shown by their unswerving 
loyalty to their country. For, while they suffered 
the most bitter persecutions at the hands of their 
countrymen, they clung tenaciously to their polit- 
ical opinions and their loyalty to England, when 
more feeble and less noble spirits would have re- 
coiled, remained unbroken and unshaken. Their 
position was a strong one and they sustained it 
against all the sophistry of the colonists. They 
contended that the Americans were not taxed 
without representation and were sustained in this 
view by the best lawyers of the time. According 
to all the great constitutional authorities of that 
age, the British Parliament in its imperial capac- 
ity represented the whole empire and all its 
dependencies, which, of course, included the 
American colonies. When a member of the Brit- 
ish Parliament is chosen, he does not represent 
any particular district, but the whole empire. 

All Americans now agree that the preservation 
of the Union, menaced by secession and the arms 
of the Confederacy, was one of the most glorious 
events in the history of the world. And the name 



192 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

of Lincoln is hailed as the savior of the Union 
and the second founder of the Republic. That the 
Union should have been broken up and destroyed 
would have been a national calamity of such mag- 
nitude and of such colossal proportions as to 
strike terror and dismay into the hearts of all 
patriotic Americans. It would have been a catas- 
trophe so overwhelming and appalling as to fill 
with the most intense grief and anguish every 
patriotic breast. Now, if the destruction of our 
glorious Union would have been so deplorable; 
if the secession of the Southern States was to be 
so dreaded and to be averted at all hazards; if 
the preservation of the Union justified the ex- 
penditure of so much blood and treasure, and if 
the triumph of the Union arms was so glorious as 
to elicit the plaudits of millions and to cause the 
most enthusiastic rejoicing and exultation 
throughout the Nation, because loyalty had tri- 
umphed over treason and the Republic founded 
by the fathers had been saved ; if, we say, all this 
is true, did not our ancestors have as much reason 
to deplore the destruction of the glorious Union 
of Great Britain and America as we did the dis- 
memberment of the Federal Union? Was not the 
attitude of the Loyalists of the revolutionary 
period toward their country precisely the same 
as that of the Unionists of 1861? Nay, were not 
their reasons still more cogent and their position 
stronger than those of the patriots who saved the 
Union? The disparity both in wealth and terri- 
torial extent between the Northern States and the 
Confederacy was not nearly so great as that be- 
tween Great Britain and her American colonies. 
Even had the Union been dismembered, the North- 
ern States would still have constituted a powerful 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 193 

republic and the Confederacy itself would have 
ranked with the leading nations of the world. But 
not so with the American colonies in 1776. They 
were but a mere fringe along the Atlantic coast. 
In wealth, resources, population and territorial 
extent they constituted but a small fraction of the 
British empire. There was British America at 
the north alone much greater than the colonies, 
not to speak of the great dominion of India with 
its vast territory, inexhaustible wealth and teem- 
ing millions, an empire in itself. These with her 
other dependencies constituted a dominion "on 
which the sun never set." Moreover, Great Brit- 
ain possessed noble traditions and a glorious his- 
tory. All our constitutions and laws are founded 
on those of the mother country. Our liberties 
were not won, as many fondly imagine, by the 
patriots of 1776, but were achieved centuries be- 
fore at Runnymede and were confirmed by the 
Glorious Revolutions of 1642 and 1688. 

In the American Revolution is seen one of the 
great delusions of democracy. Our ancestors 
fought against imaginary grievances. For no 
heavy burdens were imposed on them by the light 
tax which they opposed. But it was the appre- 
hension that later parliaments would impose on 
them more onerous burdens that spurred them on 
to resistance ; in other words, they fought against 
a nonentity, against a fancied grievance they 
knew did not then exist — an hallucination. 

The people of Great Britain are as free as we 
are. In all parts of the British Empire to-day 
British subjects enjoy all the liberties and priv- 
ileges that we enjoy. Canada, contiguous to us 
on the North, is blessed with political autonomy. 
Can anyone doubt that we, too, should have had 



194 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

our parliament and that, like Canada and Aus- 
tralia, under the dominion of Great Britain, we 
should have flourished and prospered? The sev- 
erance of the connection of Great Britain with her 
American colonies was an appalling calamity to 
all the world. It is true that our country is now 
the most wealthy and powerful nation on the 
globe. But Great Britain and the United States 
combined would constitute a nation invincible and 
that could defy the whole world. With their col- 
ossal power and resources they could guarantee 
universal peace. International arbitration and 
disarmament could be accomplished and Tenny- 
son's "parliament of nations" would no longer 
be a poetic fancy. 

We have thus shown that the position of the 
colonies was untenable and that they fought not a 
reality, but a chimera; that there was no just 
ground for their plea of taxation without repre- 
sentation. Therefore, it is clear that the right of 
representation as claimed by the fathers is not an 
inherent or vested right, but that it is purely arbi- 
trary as to what citizens or classes shall be vested 
with the elective franchise and what citizens or 
classes shall be excluded from it. It is not a 
question of constitutional right, but of expediency. 

To continue our argument, the suffrage in a 
great measure should be restricted. The dual test 
should be adopted. How many it would disfran- 
chise we do not know. The electors at this mo- 
ment comprise only about one-fourth of our 
population. President Taft has truly stated that 
the country is governed by only a quarter of its 
population. So it is a minority government any- 
how. If the dual qualification should operate to" 
reduce the citizenship to even one-tenth the popu- 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 195 

lation, that should not in the least detract from 
its merits. We are not a monarchist or a socialist. 
We are a democrat. But we are opposed to all 
shams. We want the genuine article of democ- 
racy as far as practicable. Knowing that always 
a minority of the people must rule, we want that 
minority to comprise the best citizenship of the 
country and to be the actual sovereigns, reigning 
with dignity, honor and glory. 

Such are the reforms we would propose for our 
countrymen — a government on the one hand 
avoiding the extreme of monarchy, Caesarism and 
despotism, with its crimson record, its revolting 
cruelties and atrocities, and on the other hand 
steering clear of radical democracy, the turbulent 
multitude, whose wild excesses and extravagances 
culminating in anarchy and whose violence, cruel- 
ties and crimes are even more horrible than those 
of the most brutal and infamous tyrant that ever 
lived. It would be a type of government attained 
through pursuing the golden mean, a safe and 
salutary course that should be trodden of wise 
and benevolent statesmen and leading to national 
grandeur and glory. 

While the numerical strength of the electorate 
would be materially reduced, yet by the process of 
elimination, by lopping off the excrescences and 
by the expulsion from it of those elements that 
constitute its base and repulsive features, it would 
be invigorated and much more than compensated 
for its numerical loss by the superior quality of 
the residue of electors. 

This body of American citizens vested with sov- 
ereign power should be dubbed the Great Elector- 
ate. And well would it deserve this noble name. 
It would compose the very flower of the manhood 



196 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

and womanhood of the Nation, "the expectancy 
and rose of the fair state." Though comprising 
but a fraction of the population, yet it would 
embrace the consummate wisdom, patriotism and 
virtues of the country ; in it would be mirrored its 
highest and most exalted character, its loftiest 
and noblest virtues and the patriotic aspirations 
of men worthy to rule. 

Such a government would be the crowning tri- 
umph of modern civilization, the most glorious 
achievement of all the ages. Under it the roll of 
citizenship would be a roll of honor and the name 
of American citizen would be held in higher es- 
teem and veneration throughout the world than 
ever the name of Roman was even when Rome 
was in her glory. The green-eyed monster envy 
need not turn his optics on the noble and sacred 
institution of the Great Electorate. For, while 
it would comprise many citizens of great intel- 
lectual gifts and endowments, of the most exalted 
character and the sublimest virtues, yet there 
would be nothing in it to excite the envy of a 
single mortal among righteous men, nothing to 
exclude the worthy from the companionship of 
the highest virtue or from participation in the 
governmental functions of the greatest nation in 
the world. For, while the office of elector would 
be an honor, yet it would not be so lofty as to be 
inaccessible, a pent-up Utica to restrain worthy 
aspirations. It would be a dignity that the wor- 
thy need not covet ; for but to deserve it were to 
be crowned with it. 

Again, the standard of citizenship so exalted 
and entrance into the sacred precincts of the 
Great Electorate secured only by the meritorious, 
a premium would be placed on the highest virtues 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 197 

and an incentive furnished for the cultivation of 
all the graces that should distinguish and adorn 
this faithful guardian and conservator of our free 
and noble institutions. 

Under our present regime, the bestowal of the 
franchise on the common herd is but "throwing 
pearls to swine." It makes of it a commodity of 
price, of barter and sale, often a mere bauble sold 
for a song. But the Great Electorate, emancipated 
from those base and ignoble elements that have 
made it the servile tool of selfish and unscrupu- 
lous interests and the shackles of corporate power, 
that so long have fettered it, broken, would grow 
in magnitude and in strength and every increment 
would augment its vitality and power. 

The author does not profess to be a great states- 
man or philosopher, nor does he arrogate to him- 
self wisdom and virtues superior to those of other 
mortals. But it is the consensus of opinion of 
some of the wisest and most patriotic citizens of 
this country that it is on the brink of revolution ; 
that something must be done to stay the dire 
catastrophe that is impending; that predatory 
wealth and privileges and pampered pride long 
have plundered the people and still are pillaging 
them; that venality stalks abroad with brazen 
front ; that the blandishments of wealth and 
power have in a great measure seduced our man- 
hood, womanhood and patriotism and debauched 
our citizenship, and that corruption is sapping the 
very foundations of the Nation. 

Futile and ineffective will be all the efforts un- 
der the present regime to avert the awful omens 
that foreshadow the doom of the Republic. It is 
idle to lament the deplorable conditions of the 
countrv, if no effective measures shall be taken to 



198 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCEACY. 

restrain corruption and curb the exorbitant power 
of aggregated wealth, the infamous monopolies 
and trusts that with impunity have exploited the 
people so long. One last supreme effort at least 
should be made to restore the people their liber- 
ties and to save the country from grasping ambi- 
tion and avarice, those twin courtesans so vile, 
yet whose bewitching and ravishing powers have 
caused the wreck of empires. It is imperative that 
a vigorous and radical reform be instituted and 
that the " Augean stables" be cleansed. As a 
necessary prelude and preliminary, the Constitu- 
tion should be amended to meet modern condi- 
tions and requirements. Thus vitalized, laws in 
unison with its noble and lofty purposes and re- 
sponsive to the people's just demands should be 
enacted, satisfying and gratifying their highest 
hopes and aspirations. Thus only can the best 
interests of the people be conserved and the pres- 
ervation of the Republic assured. 

Now, what are some of those reforms so vital 
to the happiness of the people and the preserva- 
tion of the Nation? Certainly one is a more equi- 
table division of the profits of labor. It, indeed, is 
the gravest problem that confronts the country. 
For many years now the money power has had 
full sway and lorded it over the unprivileged 
many. But the time has about come for the man- 
hood of the people to assert itself and to break 
the shackles that so long have held them in de- 
grading and humiliating bondage to the robber 
barons who have despoiled them. The pendulum 
is ready to swing in the opposite direction. Labor 
so long oppressed is about to be avenged and pam- 
pered wealth forced to disgorge its ill-gotten 
gains. Labor has been very modest in its claims. 



DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 199 

It has received from capital but a small pittance 
of its earnings. Labor, the creator of wealth, is 
greater than, and above, wealth. For the creator 
is greater than its creature. Even now labor 
would be satisfied with a small part of its just re- 
wards. But capital is arrogant and defiant and 
will resist every effort to secure a just division 
of profits. It arrogates to itself the lion's share 
and will be contented with nothing less. Labor, 
however, that on suppliant knee once implored 
capital for a meager share of its earnings, all at- 
tempts at reconciliation and a fairer division of 
profits having failed, will demand, not a part of 
those profits, but the whole, to which she is justly 
entitled. For why should capital participate at 
all in the profits of labor? What is produced by 
labor should belong to labor. This is undoubtedly 
theoretically true. But, as socialism is impracti- 
cable and a just division of profits not feasible at 
the present time, labor should at least be allowed 
a much greater share in them. All public utilities, 
so far as practicable, should be owned and oper- 
ated by the government, so that no profits shall 
accrue to trusts, but all proceeds over and above 
expenses shall revert to the people. Though the 
visionary theories of such apologists of socialism 
as Marks, Count Tolstoi and others should be re- 
pudiated, yet there is no political creed that has 
been advocated, however Utopian most of its 
tenets may be, that does not contain some virtue, 
no desert creed so sterile that in its sandy wastes 
some golden grains may not be found. So in the 
Sahara of socialism we find some oases and in 
its burning sands some golden grains. From it 
we should cull its brightest tenets that would 
adorn our civic coronet. 



200 DELUSIONS OF DEMOCRACY. 

» 
We sound a note of warning to our country- 
men. Let them ponder, gravely ponder the awful 
consequences of their folly; on the brink of the 
precipice of anarchy, let them pause, solemnly 
pause, lest a fatal step precipitate them into that 
horrible abyss. For we here solemnly affirm that 
the many will not always consent to be plundered 
by the few ; that ' ' the boar hard pressed will turn 
upon his pursuer ; ' ' that if any pillaging should be 
done, it were better for the few to be plundered 
than for the many; that if robbery is the game, 
the masses should share in the prey. 

While the triumph of radical socialism should 
be deplored, yet the conduct of the two great polit- 
ical parties, their monumental blunders, their 
venality and their subjection to corporate influ- 
ences and the special interests are hastening the 
realization of those monstrous doctrines. The 
salvation of the country demands the divorce of 
the government from corporate power and other 
sinister influences, the elimination of all lobbyists 
from our legislative halls and the lustration of 
our courts, too often the obsequious and pliant 
instruments of monopolies and the money power. 
The electorate purged, vice dethroned, the 
iniquities that debauch the manhood of the Na- 
tion obliterated, virtue triumphant would stimu- 
late patriotic hopes and aspirations ; the dawn of 
a glorious era would appear and the dreams of 
the philosophers and seers since the foundation 
of the world would be realized in a genuine re- 
public, exemplifying all the virtues that should 
distinguish beneficent governments. 

FINIS. 



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